


Ripper Weather

by sunflowerseedsandscience



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, First Time, Resolved Sexual Tension, Season/Series 06, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:03:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7381033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerseedsandscience/pseuds/sunflowerseedsandscience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder and Scully return to the City of Brotherly Love to assist in the capture of a murderer who seems to be taking his inspiration from the most famous serial killer of all time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Come Into the Garden, Maud

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA  
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1998  
2:30 AM

The door to New Deck Tavern stood propped open, in spite of the cool October night, expelling groups of people in varying degrees of inebriation at regular intervals. Bethany Walker, twenty-two and more than a little drunk, stumbled slightly on the uneven bricks of the front steps as she and her friends began to make their way home after their usual Thursday night bender. More responsible students might save such behavior for the weekends, but New Deck featured two dollar pints and half-priced appetizers on Thursdays, and the siren song of cheap alcohol and food was difficult for cash-strapped undergrads to resist.

The five women made their slow and stumbling way up 34th Street, heading in the general direction of Powelton Avenue, the border between Philadelphia's well-lit and well-patrolled University City and the much darker, shabbier neighborhood of Powelton Village. In sharp contrast to the brick row homes populating much of Philly's real estate, Powelton was full of Gothic and Victorian standalone houses that had probably once been lovely and charming, before most of them had fallen into disrepair. The majority of the neighborhood was now occupied mainly by college students, but the further north and west one traveled, the rougher the streets became. Bethany lived with her boyfriend Aaron and two other couples in a run-down house on Powelton Avenue itself, the desirable close-to-campus location making up for the beer smell that never seemed to come out of the carpets.

Bethany peeled away from her friends at Cherry Street, leaving them to run the gauntlet of Fraternity Row without her. Going home this way was slightly more convoluted, but she hated braving the wolf whistles and catcalls of the drunken frat boys who took up residence on the porches of their houses every evening. She passed through the cluster of Drexel University's freshman dorms, their courtyards full of eighteen-year-olds drunk on nothing more than the freedom to be outside unchaperoned at two in the morning, and turned left on 33rd Street. Halfway down the block, she left the bright overhead glow of the streetlights and took a path that ran diagonally into the darkness at her right. The completely unlit stretch of pavement ran through a park called the Summer Winter Community Garden, known to local inhabitants as the Rape Garden. Between the total lack of lighting within the garden, and the vine-covered fences that blocked all visibility from the surrounding streets, the garden at night had a dark, otherworldly feel that most people- especially women- found sinister. Hence the name.

Bethany Walker rather liked the garden. She was from a small town, from a neighborhood too safe to have ever bothered with streetlights, and when she passed between the fences of the individual garden plots, she could almost imagine she was back home, far from the city, walking down her own street late at night. She walked home this way whenever possible, day or night, even though Aaron had repeatedly asked her not to, because in spite of the garden's sinister name, nobody she knew could name an incident when someone actually _had_ been attacked there.

Bethany passed under the branches of a locust tree, set slightly back from the path, and heard the branches rustle above her. She had time to think the noise odd, given the stillness of the night, the lack of wind, before she was startled by a loud _thump_ as something dropped to the pavement behind her. Before she could turn there were hands over her mouth, stifling her scream of terror, holding her in place. She had no time to struggle before there was a sensation of cold at her neck, deepening to a terrible sharp, wet pain and an unnatural grating against the very back of her throat, as though she were choking on a mouthful of gravel. The hand at her mouth disappeared, and she tried to scream but could not, couldn't make her lungs obey her, and then she was falling to the pavement in an ungraceful heap. Her last sensation was of lying in a puddle, and she had time to confusedly think, _That's odd, it didn't rain today_ before she realized that the puddle was her, and the world went dark around her.

\------------

FBI HEADQUARTERS  
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1998  
10:30 AM

Dana Scully was typing determinedly away at her computer when Fox Mulder re-appeared in the bullpen after having been gone most of the morning. He took his chair from his own desk, yanked it over to hers, and flopped into it backwards, carelessly blocking half the aisle.

"What did Kersh want?" Scully asked, not looking up.

"There's good news and bad news," Mulder replied, resting his chin on his hands. "Well, good news, bad news, and good news, really. Or good news, bad news, good news, and bad news, if you really want to get technical."

"Just tell me, Mulder," said Scully.

"Okay, well, the good news is we've got an assignment, and it's not fertilizer-related. The bad news is, it's not an X-File."

"Did you really expect it to be?" asked Scully. "It's not our department anymore, Mulder. And I wouldn't count on Fowley and Spender asking us for a consult." She looked up, finally. "What's the other good news and bad news?"

"Kersh is loaning me out to BSU," said Mulder, "and this time, they need a pathologist too, so I get to take you with me. The bad news is it's in-"

"Philadelphia," Scully finished for him. Mulder's mouth dropped open.

"How did you-"

"I read the papers, Mulder," she said, rolling her eyes. "I watch the news. They think they have a serial killer- what is it, eight victims now?"

"Nine," said Mulder. "They found a girl in University City this morning. They want me to help with a profile."

"And me?" asked Scully. "The ME isn't handling these autopsies?"

"He got called away on a family emergency two weeks ago, and the pathologists they've got haven't found anything helpful," said Mulder. "Kersh might be a blowhard, but he knows you're no slouch with a scalpel, so you're coming with me." Mulder stood, kicking his chair back to his own desk and grabbing his coat. "We'll probably have to stay overnight, at least for tonight. You need to grab anything from your place before we go, or is your bag in your car?" Scully stood and gathered her things.

"No, I have my overnight bag. We can head straight up." They exited the bullpen side by side, Mulder's hand at Scully's back, oblivious to the stares of the agents around them. He held the door for her.

"A question, Mulder," said Scully, knowing what the answer would be, but asking anyway. "Why did you file the location in your 'bad news' column?"

"Does anything good ever happen in Philadelphia?" asked Mulder, shrugging. "To us, I mean." Scully sighed.

"Nothing ever happened to _you_ in Philadelphia, that I'm aware of," said Scully. "But if it'll get you to shut up about it once and for all, I'm sure we can find time to get you a matching tattoo."

"Right, because it's the tattoo that upset me," grumbled Mulder. In the interest of keeping the car ride north friendly, Scully chose not to respond to that.

 

\--------------------

INTERSTATE 95 NORTH  
12:30 PM

 

"Well, I can see why they asked for you," said Scully a few hours later in the car, flipping through the casefile on her lap. "This case is bizarre, Mulder. Other than the basic cause of death, there's almost nothing obvious to link these victims." Mulder nodded.

"Different ages, different ethnicities, different socioeconomic classes, different professions," he said. "Two of them weren't even residents of Philadelphia. One was on a business trip from San Francisco, and one was visiting family."

"And he's killing both men and women," Scully observed. "In a pattern, no less. The murders are in groups of three, two women and a man to each group, each killed over the span of three days- and the man is always killed second. What do you make of that?"

"No real idea, yet," said Mulder. "But other than cause of death, it's just about the only common thread I can see. The time between the killings isn't even uniform: the first three were on the fifth, sixth, and seventh of September, the second three were sixteen days later, and this latest three were eleven days after that."

"There's one other common detail in here that wasn't in the news," said Scully, gesturing to the casefile.

"The trophies he's taking?" She nodded. "Yeah, they've kept that out of the papers. Probably so they've got details to ask for to determine the validity of anyone trying to take credit for the killings."

"But even within that similarity, there are differences," observed Scully. "The killer is taking internal organs, but not the same organs each time." She frowned. "And with impressive accuracy, too. Is there any chance this could be related to black-market organ harvesting? Selling organs for transplants?"

"It's a good thought, but I doubt it," said Mulder. "Cutting the throat isn't really the preferred method of organ harvesters; too messy." Scully conceded the point with a nod of her head.

"What kind of access will I have to the bodies?" asked Scully. "Obviously the earliest victims are going to be the most difficult, but-"

"Bethany Walker hasn't been autopsied yet; I asked them to wait for you," said Mulder. "The other two from this batch, Liza Klein and Timothy Hyde, are still on ice at the morgue, so you'll be able to get a look at them, as well. The other six victims have already been returned to their families."

"I suppose we can always order exhumations if we need to," Scully sighed. The prospect was not a pleasant one, but if the autopsy reports were lacking, it would be necessary.

"Could be a bit of a hassle for Stanley Hammond's remains," commented Mulder.

"He's the one from San Francisco?"

"Yup."

"Well, we'll cross that bridge if we need to," said Scully. She returned the casefile to Mulder's briefcase and gazed out of the window, thinking back to her flight to Philadelphia almost two years ago. She had been unfocused and edgy for the entire commute, she remembered, distracted by emotions that ran the gamut from annoyance and anger at Mulder, to absolute terror at Leonard Betts' words to her the previous week. She flashed on what Mulder had grumbled at her as they'd left the bullpen today... and the words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself, before she could remind herself that they still had an hour's drive, that the last thing she needed was for the atmosphere in the car to deteriorate. There had been enough strain between them lately.

"Mulder, what did you mean earlier?"

"Hmmm?"

"About the tattoo not being what upset you." He was silent, his eyes trained on the road in front of him, but Scully noticed his knuckled whiten as he gripped the steering wheel. "And don't say it was my handing Pudovkin off to the Philadelphia field office, because we both know he wasn't what you thought he was." Still nothing. "Mulder?"

"Tell you what, Scully," he said, still not looking at her. "I'll tell you what I meant if you tell me what it is about Diana that's got you so out of sorts." Scully's jaw dropped.

"I- _what?_ "

"You heard me. You don't like her, that much is obvious. Why not?"

"Why _not_? Mulder, take your pick! She's in our office, doing work that should be _ours_ -"

"She was assigned there, Scully, she didn't drive us out-"

"I don't trust her-"

"No one's asking you to-"

"-and frankly, Mulder, even with all of that aside, the way she treats me would be enough on its own to put my hackles up." Mulder frowned.

"What do you mean, the way she treats you?"

"I mean that whenever I see her, whenever I pass her in the hallways, anytime, for some reason, I have to interact with her, she looks at me like something she found stuck to her shoe. I'd say all of that is more than enough reason to dislike someone." She shook her head. "Okay, your turn."

"Those are the only reasons, Scully?"

"Those aren't enough?" Mulder was silent.

"You know what, Scully?" he said finally. "Maybe it _was_ just the tattoo that upset me."

"Oh, come on, Mulder. You as good as told me it wasn't an hour ago." He shrugged.

"The deal still stands, Scully. You tell me what _really_ upsets you about Diana, and I'll tell you my real reasons for hating the City of Brotherly Love."

"Mulder, I already-"

"You know, Scully," he said, cutting her off, "at least you finally have a desk. That's one positive thing to come out of this whole mess, right?" Scully softened immediately, reaching out, touching his arm gently.

"Mulder...."

"It's got a nameplate on it and everything."

"Mulder... you must know that..." She sighed. "At least, I would _hope_ you know... I'd much rather be back down in the basement, with no desk and no nameplate, than up in the bullpen with them." Finally, he looked at her, his smile hesitant.

"Yeah?" She held his gaze and nodded. He reached out and covered her hand on his arm with his own, giving it a squeeze. "What do you say I buy you a cheesesteak for dinner, after we finish up at the station tonight?" She laughed.

"I have to tell you Mulder, you sure know how to sweep a girl off her feet."


	2. Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

PHILADELPHIA POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9TH  
2:00 PM

"Coming through!" 

Mulder and Scully were nearly knocked to the side by an officer racing down the hall past them, carrying an armful of files to the work space towards which they'd been directed on their arrival. The entire building was buzzing with a frantic energy, the disappointed expression on every face saying the same thing: _We've lost this round._ The clock had begun ticking three days ago with the murder of Liza Klein. The discovery of Timothy Hyde the day after had marked the halfway point, and now, with the death of Bethany Walker, the window to catch the killer before he completed his most recent cycle had closed. 

The hallway opened up to a large room, mostly filled with individual detectives' desks. Along one wall was a series of bulletin boards, their pale blue canvas surfaces covered in crime scene photographs. In the center was a map of Philadelphia, round red pushpins marking the locations where bodies had been found. Mulder stopped at the first desk he passed and bent to speak to its occupant, an officer sporting a mustache and a truly impressive mullet.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where to find Detective Spagnolo?" he asked. The officer looked up from his computer, frowned at Mulder suspiciously, gave Scully an appreciative once over that she pointedly ignored, and turned to the room at large.

"Yo, Spags!" he bellowed. "The Feds is here!" Over by the bulletin boards, a plainclothes officer turned from his conversation. Spotting Mulder and Scully, he strode across the room towards them. He was Mulder's height, maybe a few inches taller, with dark eyes and a headful of black curls. 

"Detective Mitch Spagnolo," he said, extending his hand. Mulder took it and gave it a firm shake. "You Fox Mulder?"

"Just Mulder," he corrected, and Spagnolo smirked slightly. Mulder put his hand at Scully's back. "And this is my partner, Dana Scully." Spagnolo was too much of a gentleman to ogle Scully the way Mullet had, but his grin as he shook Scully's hand was slightly too indecent for Mulder's tastes.

"Pleasure," said Spagnolo. "You here to do the autopsy for us?"

"I'm a pathologist, yes," said Scully.

"Our chief medical examiner's out for a family thing this week," said Spagnolo, shaking his head. "Can't be helped, but I gotta tell ya, it's a helluva bad time for it. His people autopsied the first two victims this week, but I don't got the confidence in them I wanna have for somethin' like this, ya know? And your old boss, he spoke real highly of you. Said you was the best."

"You know Walter Skinner?" asked Mulder, surprised.

"Yeah, we was in Nam together," said Spagnolo. "Kept in touch, on and off. I want somethin' from the Feds, I call Walter. He talked to your new boss for me, got the okay for youse guys to come up here."

"Whose idea was it to bring us in?" asked Scully.

"Mine," said Spagnolo. "Tell you the truth, it didn't make me that popular around here... but this whole thing is a goddamn mess. No real jurisdiction because bodies are bein' found in every district in the city. Everybody's got their theories, but nobody's sayin' nothin' that makes any sense, ya know?" He shook his head, and crossed the room towards the bulletin boards, Mulder and Scully behind him. "Anyways, we got some of the crime scene photos up on the board here, and Agent Scully, we got all the autopsy reports for you to go through. And we still got the first two bodies from this batch on ice for ya to look at."

"Thank you," said Scully. "I'd like to get to the ME's office and get started as soon as possible. Could I possibly take copies of the autopsy reports with me, so I can compare notes?"

"Yeah, sure," said Spagnolo. "No problem."

"Detective Spagnolo, think there's any chance I could get a look at the most recent crime scene while it's still light?" asked Mulder.

"We got people there now," said Spagnolo. "I can give you a lift, if you want. ME's office is a couple blocks from here, we can drop you on the way, Agent Scully."

"Thank you."

"Lemme just round up my partner, and we'll go," said Spagnolo. "I'll meet youse guys out front, okay?" He took off, disappearing into the maze of desks, and Mulder turned to Scully, grinning.

"Youse ready to go?" he asked, and Scully smiled.

"I don't think you can say 'youse' to refer to just one person, Mulder," she chuckled, heading back down the hallway towards the front doors. The sound of her laugh, such a rare thing these days, only made him want to keep teasing her. 

"What, you don't find the local dialect charming?" He held open the front door for her, and they exited into the chill October afternoon. "I think Detective Spagnolo found _you_ charming." Scully rolled her eyes.

"Mulder, we got a warmer welcome than we usually get from local law enforcement. Don't spoil it by getting territorial."

"Who said anything about getting territorial? All I said was that he likes you."

"Did you see how tall he was? I'd murder my neck, kissing him." The smile slid off Mulder's face at the mental picture this presented.

" _I'm_ tall, too," he muttered. Scully's eyebrows shot up.

"Yes, you are," she agreed.

"So are you saying all tall guys are off limits for you?" Scully smiled playfully, and Mulder's heart sped up.

"I guess that depends on how good they are at kissing," she said. "It would have to be something really special to make all that neck pain worth it."

"I could bend down," Mulder suggested.

"Then your neck would hurt instead."

"Yeah, but you have a truly fantastic neck, Scully," he said, reaching out to cup the back of it under her hair. "I'd gladly sacrifice my neck's well-being to protect yours." He took it as a good sign that she didn't immediately throw his hand off... and while she didn't move any closer, she didn't break his gaze, either. Her tongue darted out, quick as a flash, to moisten her lower lip, and Mulder's breath caught in his throat. He increased the pressure on the back of Scully's neck, gently, ever so slightly pulling her towards him, and she took the smallest of steps closer, tilting her chin up-

The door behind them banged open, and Mulder let go of Scully's neck as though burned. Detective Spagnolo came out, thankfully engrossed in conversation with the man next to him and oblivious to the scene unfolding on the front steps of the police station.

"Guys, this is my partner, Steve Morris," said Spagnolo, indicating the smaller man next to him. Morris was much younger than Spagnolo, blonde, with green eyes and dimples. "Steve just made detective a year ago, so you gotta forgive him if he's a little green."

"Always nice to know you've got your partner's confidence," said Morris, with an easy laugh. He shook Mulder's hand, then Scully's. "So, you ordered a limo ride to the medical examiner's office?"

"With continuing service to University City," said Mulder.

"Excellent," said Morris, his voice clear and clipped, devoid of Spagnolo's thick South Philly cadences. "Lead on, partner. The way you drive, it'll be dark before you get Agent Mulder to the crime scene."

\-------------

 

SUMMER WINTER COMMUNITY GARDEN  
3:30 PM

After dropping Scully off at the medical examiner's office, Morris drove Spagnolo and Mulder west over the Schuylkill River, past the imposing facade of the Thirtieth Street Station, and into University City. As they turned right up 33rd Street, the crowds on the surrounding sidewalks increased, until finally they reached the police blockade, where Morris showed his badge to be let through. One block up, they parked and got out, joining the throngs of police already milling around the entrance to the Summer Winter Community Garden.

"The college kids call it the 'Rape Garden,'" intoned Morris, as they ducked the police tape over the entrance.

"It's actually known for that?" asked Mulder.

"Nah, most of the kids avoid it after dark or go through in groups, 'cause of its reputation," said Spagnolo. "Bad lighting, at night. Most of the crime we see around here happens further west- muggings and drug busts, mostly. Occasionally worse." The three men trudged down the path, passing individually fenced garden plots, mostly barren, abandoned until next spring. About halfway through the garden they reached at the crime scene proper, their arrival heralded by the forensics team that was giving the area another going-over. Mulder left his companions' sides, walking a large, slow circle around the bloodstain Bethany Walker had left behind as she left this world.

"Definitely killed here," he murmured to himself under his breath. "Too much blood for him to have done it somewhere else." He looked around, at the sides of the path next to the bloodstain. The garden plots were surrounded by chest-high chain link fences, each with an individual gate. Mulder turned to Spagnolo and Morris. "How dark does it get in here at night?" They both shrugged, but one of the forensic techs nearby spoke up.

"Not pitch black, but pretty dark," she said. "I went to school here, at Drexel. Used to live around the corner."

"Would it be dark enough to overlook someone crouching by one of these fences?"

"Nah, probably not," said the tech. "It's really dark when you first walk in, but by the time you get this far down the path, your eyes have adjusted."

"She'd been drinking," supplied Morris helpfully. "The last people to see her alive were her friends. They were down at the-"

"New Deck Tavern, I know," said Mulder. "Her friends said she was tipsy, but not completely drunk. Tipsy probably isn't enough to overlook someone crouching by the side of the path." He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking about Scully, wondering whether she'd begun the autopsy yet or not. "We'll need to see the full autopsy results to be sure," he said, "but the preliminary examination of the body didn't show any defensive wounds. Which means he had to have cut her throat almost immediately after he grabbed her... and that means he was able to completely surprise her." He turned and looked back down the path. "It would have been quiet in here late at night; she would have heard someone approaching from behind. She probably would have noticed someone by the fence... and someone further into one of these garden plots would have made noise coming out to chase her. So if he surprised her...." Mulder's voice trailed off as he looked at the small tree growing next to the path, just to the side of the rusty bloodstain. The trunk wasn't thick enough to hide behind, not really... but those branches were pretty low.... He turned to the forensic techs. "Anyone bring a ladder?"

A small ladder was brought in from one of the vans parked outside the garden, and Mulder, conscious of keeping goodwill between himself and Spagnolo's people, stepped back and allowed the same forensic technician who'd advised him of the garden's lighting to climb the ladder and examine the lowest branches of the tree. She was very thorough, he noted with approval, and before long, a triumphant "Ah-HAH!" announced that she'd found something. She plucked something off the trunk of the tree with her tweezers, securing it in a vial before climbing back down the ladder. "Looks like fibers from someone's clothing," she said. "We'll have to have a closer look, but it doesn't look very weathered. Can't have been there long."

"Nice work," said Mulder. It was unlikely they would get any DNA from the fibers- the killer had been too careful so far- but by figuring out what kind of garment the fibers had come from, what they were made out of, by analyzing any dirt found trapped between them, they could find clues to identify the killer- or at least to help rule suspects out. Speaking of which....

"Anything her friends said give any insight at all?" Mulder asked Spagnolo.

"Nah," the detective said. "They went drinking at the same spot they hit every Thursday, and they all walked home. Boyfriend's clean, too. He went to the all-night pizza joint across from his apartment for a snack. Owner's security camera has him in there from one in the morning until sometime after two, and the guys he was with said they went back to his place after. The kid's pretty shook up, they been together a long time. None of 'em had any ideas on who'd do this or why." Mulder nodded.

"Can you drive me back to the medical examiner's office?" he asked Morris. "I want to pick up my partner when she's done. Our car's still at the station and we're gonna need to get checked into a motel at some point."

"Yeah, sure," said Morris. "You got what you need here?"

"For now," said Mulder. "Might come back after dark to get a better idea of what it was like when it happened."

 

Back in the car, Mulder felt his stomach growling and remembered he hadn't had lunch. "Hey, you guys know a good spot to get a cheesesteak near the station?" he asked the detectives, who both laughed.

"What, you plannin' on doin' the tourist thing while youse guys is here?" asked Spagnolo. "Gonna see the Liberty Bell, maybe go to a Phillies game?" Mulder grinned.

"No, I just promised Scully a cheesesteak, is all," he explained. "I know enough to know Pat's and Geno's are tourist traps; I thought maybe you guys knew somewhere better."

"A cheesesteak? Really? What kinda date are you?" howled Spagnolo, feigning offense on Scully's behalf. "Listen, man, here's what you do. You take her down the waterfront, okay? There's this little place on Lombard called Bistro Romano, Italian, I know the guy that owns it. It's dark, it's romantic, the food's incredible. You take your lady there, you can't go wrong, am I right, Morris?"

"Yeah, sure, Mitch," said Morris, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. "If he's looking to get laid. The man said he wanted a cheesesteak, not an expensive night on the town." He turned in his seat to look at Mulder. "There's a place a few blocks from the station called Abner's. Every bit as good as Pat's or Geno's, without the inflated prices and the two-mile line."

"Thanks," said Mulder appreciatively, and then, to Spagnolo, "How about we save Bistro Romano for after we catch this guy? As a celebration?"

"Buddy," said Spagnolo, shaking his head, "you help us catch this guy, and I'll treat you _and_ your pretty little partner to a full meal- champagne included." Mulder smiled.

"Mitch, you got yourself a deal."


	3. All Things Will Die

PHILADELPHIA MEDICAL EXAMINER'S OFFICE  
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9TH  
4:30 PM

 

Bethany Walker, Scully noted, had not been the sort of girl who would have had any difficulty garnering a few free drinks during a girls' night out. She had been tall and slender, curvy in all the right places, with long, dark hair and a lovely face that her killer had left untouched.

Below that, he had flayed her from groin to neck. The classic Y-incision was all but unnecessary.

Scully noted that the chest was still intact before retrieving her Stryker saw and cracking it herself. Some victims had been missing organs from the thoracic cavity- Ainsley Hoffmann had been missing her heart, Barry Strickler his left lung- but that was not the case here. The population of the abdomen, on the other hand, had clearly been disturbed; Scully could tell that not everyone was present and accounted for before she even began lifting organs out.

"Kidneys," she murmured to herself as she finished. "Liver. And...." She frowned. "Uterus." Those weren't easy organs to get to. Any idiot could check out an anatomy textbook from their local library, but in Scully's opinion, the neatness of the extractions strongly suggested extensive first-hand experience with the human body. She made a mental note to look at the autopsy reports from the earliest victims to see if the extractions of those organs had been this neat and clean.

The door to the autopsy bay opened behind her, and Dr. Passmore, one of the assistant pathologists, stuck her head in. "Agent Scully, can I get you anything?" 

"No, I'm just about done here," Scully called over her shoulder. "All these samples are ready to go, though," she said, indicating the vials of organ tissue lined up on a table to her right. "Could you get them up to your labs, please?"

"Sure thing," said Dr. Passmore. She grabbed a flat plastic container and filled it with slices of brain, heart, lungs, and whatever other organs the killer had decided to leave behind, and took them to the door. No sooner had she left than the door opened again, and Mulder and Detective Morris strode in.

"What's the word, Scully?" asked Mulder, stopping just inside the entrance, not quite close enough to see the body Scully was working on.

"Just finishing up," said Scully. She looked over her shoulder at the two men. "Where's detective Spagnolo?"

"Mitch doesn't do autopsies," said Morris, smirking. "Says they give him the creeps." Mulder laughed.

"Doesn't that make it difficult to be a homicide detective, having a sensitive stomach like that?" he asked.

"Mulder, can you put on a pair of gloves and hold this flap of skin back for me?" asked Scully sweetly, turning to look at him. Mulder blanched and took an involuntary step back, and Morris guffawed. "Yeah, I can't imagine anyone in law enforcement having a problem like that." She turned back to her work, shaking her head, but smiling. Mulder never seemed bothered by dead bodies in the field, but once they'd been brought into the sterile order of the autopsy bay, he was strangely uncomfortable. 

Stepping back from Bethany Walker's body, Scully removed her gloves, tossing them in the marked biohazard bin. She untied her surgical cap, shaking her hair free, conscious of Mulder's eyes on her. She gathered up her notes, tucking them into a folder that she tucked into her briefcase. "Give me a few minutes to change," she told the two men, "and we can head back to the station. I found some interesting details that I'd like to compare against the other autopsies."

 

\------------------------

PHILADELPHIA POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
5:30 PM

 

Mulder stood in front of the bulletin boards, frowning at the names of the victims. He felt as though there were some connection, something that joined them all together, something subtle that he was missing. There was a pattern in the way the names were grouped, he knew there was, but so far, it was eluding him. Behind him, Scully had commandeered a large conference table, onto which she'd spread the autopsy reports from all nine victims. She was going from one to the next, writing something down on a notepad, something that looked like measurements. Whatever the "interesting details" she'd noticed were, she clearly wasn't ready to share with the class just yet.

Next to Mulder, Spagnolo and Morris were talking, and for the most part, Mulder was doing his best to tune them out. _What I need,_ he thought, _is to get checked into the motel and sit in silence for awhile. Too much noise to focus on anything here._

"Yeah, but the only problem with lookin' for common ground," Spagnolo was saying, "is that there _ain't_ no common ground. Different people, from different places, killed in different parts of the city. You got a businessman, a college kid, a housewife, a drug dealer, a nurse, a teacher... how's he choosing 'em?" Spagnolo shook his head. "Nothin' to link 'em."

"That's not completely true," countered Morris. "All the victims are adults, all of them were killed outdoors, at night, close to where they lived- or close to where they were staying, in the cases of Hammond and Nimmels. All of them had parts missing-"

"Not the same parts-" interjected Spagnolo.

"-And all of them were killed the same way," finished Morris.

"Yeah, ripped apart and gutted like a fuckin' deer," grumbled Spagnolo. Mulder spun to face him.

"Say that again," he demanded.

"What, gutted like a deer?"

"No, the first part."

"They was ripped apart," said Spagnolo. "All of 'em." Mulder turned slowly to face the bulletin board. "But we knew that already, Mulder." Mulder held up a hand, silencing him. Behind them, Scully looked up from her notes. She'd worked with Mulder long enough to know the face he made when the pieces started sliding into place.

"Scully, you got a piece of paper?" Mulder asked. She tore a piece from her notebook and held it out, along with a pen. Mulder took both without looking at her. On it, he wrote the nine victims' names in three columns: Clara Nicolas, Barry Strickler, and Shari Nimmels in the first, Amy Staffen, Stanley Hammond, and Ainsley Hoffmann in the second, and Eliza Klein, Tim Hyde, and Bethany Walker in the third. "Read these names aloud, the way the killer has them grouped," he said. "Each group of three, the names all sound alike, don't they? Clara, Barry, Shari... and the last names, too: Nicolas, Strickler, Nimmels. Not exactly the same, but similar. Same with the second group: Amy, Stanley, Ainsley. Staffen, Hammond, Hoffmann."

"How do you explain Bethany Walker, then?" asked Scully. "She's the only one who doesn't fit."

"The selection of Bethany Walker," said Mulder with a wry smile, "is a bad joke, Scully."

"A _joke?"_

"Yup. 'Walk' is a synonym for 'Stride,' right? Look," said Mulder, taking the paper with the victims' names. Above each column, he wrote a new name: "Mary Nichols" above the first, "Annie Chapman" above the second, and "Elizabeth 'Liz' Stride" above the third. Scully frowned at the names for a moment.

"Those names sound familiar Mulder, but-"

"Oh, no _way_ , man," burst out Morris. "That's just too crazy."

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Spagnolo, totally lost.

"Jack the Ripper, Spags," said Morris, turning to his partner. "Those are the names of Jack the Ripper's first three victims." Scully's mouth dropped open.

"Jack the _Ripper?_ Mulder, come on, be serious," she said.

"Yes, Scully, Jack the Ripper. A nineteenth-century serial killer who murdered his victims at night, on the street, with a single slash to the neck, before opening up the bodies and removing organs. Any of that sound familiar to you?"

"Except for the nineteenth century part, sure. But Mulder, Jack the Ripper only killed five women. The body count's up to nine here."

"I'm not saying it's exactly the same, Scully, but there are clear parallels. Our killer is pretty clearly taking his inspiration from history."

"Killers," said Scully quietly. Spagnolo and Morris swiveled to look at her.

"Whaddaya mean, killers?" demanded Spagnolo. 

"I mean, these nine people were not all killed by the same person," said Scully. "I took a closer look at the angles of the throat cuts on the three bodies in the morgue, and when you take into account the different heights of the victims, I would say it's very likely that there are two killers, with at least six inches' difference in stature. I'm fairly confident that if I were to look at the necks of the other six victims, I would find similar indications that they were murdered by two people."

"You're sure the killer couldn't have just been standing on something for some of the attacks?" asked Morris. "A step, a curb, something like that?"

"I had the same thought, but I took a look at all of the crime scene photographs," said Scully. "None of the bodies were found close enough to any sort of elevated surfaces, and the blood spatters indicate they weren't moved after their throats were cut. The killers simply butchered them where they fell."

"Two killers," said Spagnolo, sinking into a chair by the conference table. "Man, Agent Scully, I really wanna be impressed with your math skills right now, but I ain't gonna pretend like you're givin' me good news here." He looked up at Mulder. "And I don't even know what to think about this Jack the Ripper thing. What's that even tell us about what to look for?"

"It means there will probably be six more victims," said Morris, taking a seat next to Spagnolo. "And the third and fourth Ripper victims were killed on the same night... so we may not have long to wait." Mulder was impressed.

"Amateur Ripperologist, huh?" he asked. Morris snorted.

"More like a history buff in general," he said. "Life as a homicide detective doesn't really make you wanna obsess about serial killers in your spare time, you know?"

"Point taken," conceded Mulder. He glanced at his watch. "Look, guys, Scully and I haven't eaten since this morning, and we need to get checked into a motel. Can we pick this up first thing in the morning?"

"Yeah, no problem," said Spagnolo. "Agent Scully, you enjoy your cheesesteak, you hear? You wanna go out on a real date, you call me. I'll take you to a real restaurant, a classy joint, okay?" Scully gave Mulder a look.

"Thanks, Detective Spagnolo. I'll keep it in mind."

 

\----------------

ABNER'S STEAKS  
7:00 PM

 

"Oh, man, this is perfect," moaned Mulder, holding his cheesesteak reverentially in front of his face before taking an enormous bite. Scully eyed her own sandwich skeptically.

"Mulder, this thing is so greasy, I feel like I'm gonna need a shower if I just pick it up," she said.

"In that case, let me buy you another one, Scully," said Mulder, waggling his eyebrows. Scully rolled her eyes, finally lifting up her cheesesteak and trying it.

"Mmmmm," she said. "Okay, I'll admit, that's pretty good."

"Didn't you have one on your last trip here?" asked Mulder. Scully said nothing, lowering her eyes and taking another bite of her sandwich, chewing and swallowing before answering.

"I didn't really have time," she said quietly. "There was the case, and then..." She blushed.

"And then Jerse," said Mulder, ignoring the voice in his head telling him to shut up, swallowing the sour taste in his mouth that came with saying the name.

"Yes," said Scully shortly. "And then I was in the hospital, and that was it." An awkward silence fell between them. Mulder mentally kicked himself for bringing the whole thing up again. It had been nearly two years. Why couldn't he just let it go? _Because she was scared, and she was lonely, and she reached out for comfort, and it wasn't you she reached for,_ he thought to himself bitterly. _Because she was more comfortable in a stranger's arms, a psychopath's arms, than yours._ But that wasn't all together true, was it? He had been her first call when she'd been diagnosed, when the cancer had metastasized, the first one she'd summoned to her hospital room when she'd found out the cancer was in remission.

She'd shared something meaningless with Jerse.

When it counted, she had called _him._

"Scully," he said finally, "that was an amazing catch, with the killers' heights. The chief medical examiner didn't see it, none of his assistants saw it, but you walked in and picked it up in two hours." He reached over and covered her hand where it sat on the table. "Nice work, Partner." She turned her hand over, squeezing it back, and smiled up at him through her lashes in a way that made his heart stutter in his chest.

"Thanks," she said shyly. "And... I'm not saying I agree with your Jack the Ripper thing... but it's a good theory. Pretty grounded, for you." Mulder grinned.

"Coming from you, that's as good as, 'Mulder, you're exactly right,'" he said, squeezing her hand back. "I'll take it."


	4. Beautiful City

HOLIDAY INN MIDTOWN, PHILADELPHIA  
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9  
10:30 PM

 

"This is a step above our usual accommodations, Mulder," commented Scully, slipping through the connecting door and into his room, dressed for bed in gray flannel pants and a blue t-shirt. The folder containing the autopsy reports was clutched under her arm. "What gives?"

"I thought we should stay close to the station, in case anything happens. Any new victims are likely to be discovered in the middle of the night... and the reason our usual place in Philly is so cheap is because it's so far out."

"That's not the _only_ reason it's so cheap, Mulder," said Scully, climbing up onto his bed and opening her folder. Mulder grinned.

"Yeah, the mildewed bathrooms and bedbugs probably brought the room rate down, as well," he agreed.

"Well, either way, it's a nice change to be in a place where the rooms aren't being rented by the hour," said Scully. As she began removing the paper-clipped bundles from the folder, Mulder took his own notes from his briefcase and settled himself on the bed near her. After a moment, his weight on the mattress shifted, and she became aware that he was right behind her. She just barely managed to keep herself from jumping when he suddenly rested his chin across her collarbone, his cheek nearly touching hers. Before she could ask what he was doing, he snaked one arm around her and raised the hand holding the autopsy report slightly, and she realized he was trying to read it over her shoulder. She held very still, hardly daring to breathe, hyper-conscious of his stubble grazing her neck, his arm planted on the bed by her hip, his heartbeat through her shoulder blade. She didn't understand how he was concentrating on what he was reading at all- couldn't he feel the electricity between them, the tension rolling off of her in waves?

She wanted to relax, to lean back against him.

She wanted to leap off of the bed and run back to the safety of her own room.

She wanted to turn around, knock him back on the mattress, and ride him like a thoroughbred in the Kentucky Derby.

"The really interesting thing about Jack the Ripper," said Mulder, and she felt the rumble of his voice in her back where his chest touched her, "is that the investigation into his crimes marked the birth of criminal profiling."

"Oh?" she said. She hoped he hadn't noticed the slight squeak in her voice.

"Thomas Bond, a London police surgeon, was asked by the investigating officers to provide his opinion on the murderer's medical skills and knowledge of anatomy. His writings on the case comprised the first known offender profile."

"Ah, so _that's_ where your interest in Jack the Ripper comes from," said Scully. Now she did relax, allowing her back to rest fully against his chest, leaning her head towards his slightly. She felt him smile against her ear, but he said nothing. "I've been thinking about your theory," she said.

"Still think I'm wrong?"

"I never said you were flat-out wrong," she insisted. "I'll agree the names do fit the pattern. At first, I didn't think the theory would help much, but now I see that if you're right, the names are going to be our biggest clue."

"How's that?" asked Mulder. He turned his face ever so slightly into her neck, and she suppressed a shiver.

"If the killers are choosing their victims by name alone," she said, "it means they either know the victims personally, or they're working from some kind of records, documents that are providing them with potential victims' names and addresses."

"I thought that too, at first," said Mulder. "But then I realized it's more likely they're just flipping through the phone book." Scully grinned at having spotted something Mulder had not.

"Ah, but that's where they messed up," she said. "If they'd used the phone book, selecting the victims by name wouldn't be much of a clue at all. But our killers chose two victims that wouldn't be in a Philadelphia phone book, didn't they?" Mulder suddenly stiffened, surprised.

"Stanley Hammond," he said wonderingly. "From San Francisco, in town on business."

"And Shari Nimmels, from Louisiana, staying with her sister while she underwent chemotherapy. Neither of those people would have been in the phone book; the killers had to have gotten their names somewhere else."

"Scully, you're a genius!" exclaimed Mulder, wrapping both arms around her waist from behind and squeezing her tightly. Scully caught her breath and did her best not to tense up. Mulder had not been this close to her since that moment in his hallway, months ago, when she had thought, for a brief, wonderful moment, that five years of buildup were about to pay off with what she was certain would be the kiss of the century, before they had been rudely interrupted.

Well, they had been pretty close in Antarctica, it was true, but she didn't think it counted if, at any given point, at least one of them had been unconscious or slipping into hypothermia.

Scully had assumed, after losing the X-Files, after the ditching and the arguments about Diana, after the distance that had suddenly grown between them, that Mulder had changed his mind... but here he was, wrapped around her, still holding her tightly even though the moment of excitement brought on by her revelation had passed.

She turned her head ever so slightly towards him.

He turned his head towards her.

Mulder's right arm was tight around her waist, his left hand stroking her arm gently, and as she turned towards him, his fingers found her chin, bringing her the rest of the way to him, cupping her cheek with infinite tenderness as, finally, their lips met. There was a tentative stillness for half a heartbeat; then, turning herself as fully as she could manage while still in his grasp, Dana Scully kissed Fox Mulder for all she was worth. Case notes and autopsy reports spilled everywhere, cascading off the bed, as Mulder held her tightly to his chest, swinging her legs across his and seating her firmly in his lap. His hands tangled in her hair, pressed into her ribs, the timid tenderness of a moment ago gone, replaced by frantic need and a driving passion that took Scully's breath away. She was dimly aware, in some corner of her mind, that Mulder was gradually lowering her onto the bed, that it was now easier to get both of her arms around his neck, that the weight of his torso was pressed onto hers, that his cell phone was ringing-

_Shit._

Mulder drew back from her reluctantly, his eyes begging her mutely to give him permission to ignore the phone, to shirk their responsibilities for just a little while, because surely the universe could not possible be cruel enough to prevent this from happening yet again? For a moment, she was sorely tempted, but she knew they couldn't, knew the only reason Mulder's phone would be ringing this late at night was because there had been a development in the case.

"Mulder," she said gently, "you know you have to answer it." He looked for a moment like he might argue; then, with a sigh, he sat up, letting go of her and reaching to retrieve his phone from the nightstand.

"Yeah, Mulder," he said, sitting at the edge of the bed. "What?" He rocketed to his feet, and Scully sat up quickly. "Where?" He hunted around on the floor, holding the phone to his ear, until he located his shoes. "Yeah, Scully and I will be down there as fast as we can, okay?" He hung up.

"What's going on?" asked Scully.

"Another victim," said Mulder, shoving his feet into his shoes and gathering up the case notes he had inadvertently spread all over the bed. 

"Already?" exclaimed Scully. "Isn't this a break in the pattern? It's been groups of three, with space in between!"

"I hate to tell you this, but it fits right in with my theory," said Mulder. "Get dressed, Scully. I'll tell you on the way."

 

\--------------

 

RITTENHOUSE SQUARE  
11:45 PM

 

"So you're telling me," said Scully, as Mulder pulled the car up to the police cordon and parked, "that this time, there will be _six_ victims, in six days?"

"I'm saying it's pretty likely," said Mulder. "Jack the Ripper's third and fourth victims were killed on the same night, within hours of each other, on what came to be called the 'double event.' If our killers are taking three victims for each of the original five, then I think we can expect two more in the next two days."

"A man next, and then another woman?"

"If the pattern holds," said Mulder, nodding. He turned off the car, and he and Scully got out. This neighborhood was worlds away from the run-down, dingy streets of Powelton Village. Rittenhouse Square was, as its name suggested, a quaint square space of public park, surrounded on all four sides by tall, stately brick and brownstone buildings. Trendy shops and restaurants occupied the ground floors, and Mulder was willing to bet the rents on the apartments above them were astronomical. The entire square was well-lit, and Mulder wondered, given that it wasn't that late, how the killer managed to pull this off in such a public place.

Police were milling around everywhere, but the largest concentration was outside of the park itself, at the entrance to an alleyway between an Italian bistro and a jewelry shop. Forensics were setting up high-powered lights to illuminate the alleyway, which did not have any lights of its own. Two of the officers nearby turned, and Mulder recognized Spagnolo and Morris. He lifted a hand in greeting, jogging to meet them with Scully right behind him.

"What've we got?" Mulder asked.

"Female victim, age fifty-four," said Spagnolo. "License lists an address on the Square here. We sent officers up to the apartment to see if there's a husband or roommate or whatever, but nobody's home. Looks like she lived alone."

"Her name was Catelyn Fellowes," said Morris pointedly, and Mulder nodded.

"I take it that fits?" asked Scully.

"The Ripper's fourth victim was named Catherine Eddowes," he said. "I'd say this is too close to be a coincidence, wouldn't you, Scully?"

"I'd have to agree," she conceded, then turned to the detectives. "Everything else the same as the others?"

"Yup," said Spagnolo, shuddering. "Youse guys wanna look?"

"Please," said Scully.

"Knock yourselves out," said Spagnolo. "I'm gonna stay right here, if it's all the same to you." Mulder reflected on how bad these cases had to be, to make a veteran homicide detective queasy. He glanced down at Scully. She'd been very quiet on the drive from the hotel, but he was fairly certain that wasn't because of the case.

"You ready?" he asked. She nodded, pulling an ever-present pair of latex gloves from her coat pocket and snapping them on. She followed him into the alleyway, just as the forensics technicians finally got the lights hooked up and switched them on. The alley was suddenly bathed in harsh fluorescent light, and both Scully and Mulder drew in their breath involuntarily.

An enormous gout of blood arced over the left-hand wall, running down the bricks and pooling in the cobblestone street. Across from the macabre graffiti, a woman's body lay prone on her back in a large, red puddle. Even from ten feet away, the gash at her neck was visible. Mulder approached slowly, stopping a few feet away, and Scully passed him, crouching beside the body to examine it more closely. Mulder watched her study the neck wound at close range, then move down to the woman's torso.

"What can you tell, Scully?"

"She's been cut open like the others, that much is obvious," Scully said. "This one's had her chest cracked, which is surprising." She stood, looking at him. "That takes time, Mulder, and it makes noise. How did nobody notice? She's not that far from the main street."

"Has she been here long?"

"Not long at all," said Scully. "The blood on the wall is still dripping; the puddle under her is fresh, no coagulation. I'm betting the forensics guys are gonna tell us she's been dead less than an hour." She looked around. "Who found her?"

"Guy working at the bistro," volunteered one of the forensics technicians, pointing to a metal door in one of the brick walls. "Came out to smoke a cigarette after the restaurant closed down for the night." Mulder walked down to the door and stood on the stoop, exactly where the restaurant employee would have been. Looking up, he saw a light fixture, a single naked bulb jutting out of the brick. Probably just enough light to make out the shape of the woman lying in the alleyway, ten feet away. He returned to Scully's side, surveying the woman on the ground. She was well-dressed, as far as Mulder could tell, given that her slacks and blouse had mostly been cut away. Her overcoat, however, looked expensive, and while he didn't know too much about women's shoes, Mulder was willing to bet that if he asked Scully, she'd tell him those spike-heeled boots were from an upscale designer. All of that fit, he thought, if this woman had been living in an apartment on this square. Had she been walking to her apartment, or leaving it? Had the killer jumped out and dragged her into the alley, or had he lured her there somehow? How long had he watched Catelyn Fellowes in order to know for certain that she would be passing this way, alone, at this hour? The more Mulder thought about this case, the more complicated and painstaking the planning seemed to be. 

"The killers have to have been studying their victims' movements for an extremely long time," said Scully quietly to him, reading his mind as always. "To be able to have them in this precise order, to take every single one within blocks of home, without anyone seeing or hearing anything... this is a sophisticated system, Mulder. We have _got_ to figure out where the killers are getting these names. I think that's our only chance at catching them. They're too careful, they won't slip up otherwise."

"I agree," said Mulder, taking Scully's elbow and walking her back to the mouth of the alleyway.

"So what's our next move?" she asked.

"Your next move is going to be to get back to the hotel and get some sleep," said Mulder. 

"Sleep? _Now?"_

"Yes, now," insisted Mulder. "The forensics guys are gonna be busy around here for awhile, Scully. It's going to be hours before the body's brought to the morgue. We have to assume that, at some point tomorrow night, another body is going to turn up. I need you in the autopsy bay first thing in the morning when Catelyn Fellowes is brought in, and I need you sharp." He placed his hand at the small of her back and steered her back towards the car. "Come on, I'll walk you back to the car."

"What are you going to do?" she asked, frowning.

"I'm going to wait and see what forensics come up with, and I'm gonna sit in on any witness interviews Spagnolo and Morris conduct," said Mulder. "They're going to want to talk to the guy who found her, and I'm betting they're gonna go wake up her neighbors and pump them for info, as well."

"So when will _you_ sleep, Mulder?" Scully asked.

"While you're doing the autopsy," he said, grinning. "See, I've got it all planned out. You know me, I don't need much sleep, right?" Scully didn't say anything, just looked at him, her expression soft and a little exasperated, and it dawned on him that she did, in fact, know how little sleep he required. She wanted him back at the hotel for an entirely different reason.

"I know, Scully," he said, reaching out and taking her hand. "Just hold that thought a little longer, okay? I promise we'll get this timing thing right." She nodded and squeezed his hand back.

"Call me as soon as they're ready for me at the medical examiner's office," she said, crossing around the car and opening the driver's side door. "Good luck, Mulder." She climbed in, adjusted the seat, and drove away. Mulder watched until she turned the corner, then turned and trudged back towards the crime scene. Between bees, ex-girlfriends, and nineteenth century serial killers, it was starting to look like it would take a miracle- and five more years, at this rate- before he and Scully ever managed to get this thing off the ground.


	5. To-Night the Winds Begin to Rise

PHILADELPHIA POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
MONDAY, OCTOBER 12  
2:00 PM

 

Scully staggered down the hallway of the police station, regretting her three-inch heels for the fourth or fifth time that day. Mulder had volunteered to get up early that morning and make the five-hour round trip drive to DC, stopping at both of their apartments to gather up another week's worth of clothing. Scully had been hesitant at first- Mulder had barely gotten six hours of sleep, total, over the past few days- but both of the suits in her overnight bag were getting stale, and the thought of doing one more autopsy in her heels was enough to bring her to tears. So she had shaken off both her concerns over whether or not Mulder could stay awake for the whole drive there and back, as well as her discomfort at the idea of him rooting around in her underwear drawer, and had sent him on his way, making plans to meet him at the station at noon, when he would hand her a pair of sneakers, and she would head off to autopsy the newest victim. He'd gotten held up, however, and she'd had to start without him.

Mulder's predictions had turned out to be spot on: the night after Catelyn Fellowes was found on Rittenhouse Square, a jogger near the Philadelphia Museum of Art stumbled, quite literally, over the body of Gavin Meadows, a construction worker who had been walking back to his apartment after a night at the bar with his workmates. When midnight the following night came and went, it seemed they might have been granted a reprieve, that the killers had broken their pattern for some reason... but Mulder and Scully had been awoken at five in the morning by a call from an extremely shaken Detective Spagnolo, informing them that a body had been found in South Philadelphia, less than five blocks from where Spagnolo lived with his wife and two daughters. The newest victim, an eighty-year-old grandmother beloved by all her neighbors, was named Carmela Steno, and she had been attacked as she took her dog for his usual pre-dawn walk. 

Mulder was not, as Scully had expected, at the conference table in front of the bulletin boards, where he'd installed himself over the past few days, whenever he wasn't at a crime scene. Scully felt a twinge of annoyance. Was he not back yet, still? What was taking him so long? She had what she thought might possibly be a substantial break in the case, and she was anxious to share it with him, but the only person at the conference table was Detective Morris, who was dozing over his interview notes. He started awake as he heard her heels approach.

"Agent Scully," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Sorry, must've dropped off."

"Understandable," Scully said. "Where's your partner?"

"Went home for lunch. His wife's pretty freaked out about this whole thing; I think she's packing up her and the kids to go stay with her mother out of town for awhile." He stretched. "Hey, speaking of partners, yours is conked out on a couch in one of the conference rooms."

"He's back?"

"Yeah, he got back maybe a half hour ago. Said he was gonna shut his eyes for a few minutes while he waited for you." He pointed to the far wall, where a hallway led to individual offices. "Third door on the left down there." 

"Thanks," said Scully. "Let us know when Detective Spagnolo comes back- I might have something for you guys." Morris brightened.

"Yeah?" Scully nodded.

"I might have some ideas about how at least one of the killers is choosing his victims. Let me talk to Mulder and see what he thinks." Scully strode off down the hallway, pushing open the door Morris had indicated, and found Mulder snoring softly on a lumpy-looking sofa in the corner. She paused, leaning against the doorway, a slight smile playing at the corner of her mouth, and watched him for a moment, wishing that she could just let him sleep. _Tell him what you've found out and get him back to the hotel,_ she thought to herself. _Other officers can run the searches you need. There's no reason he has to do it himself._ She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the couch by his hips and reached out, gently stroking his shoulder.

"Mulder," she said softly, "wake up." He squinted up at her, then at the clock on the wall, groaning.

"Jesus, Scully, I just fell asleep ten minutes ago."

"I know, but I have something from the autopsy to show you, Mulder, and it's important. I think I have an idea of what sort of database one of the killers is getting his victims from." His eyes opened fully, and he saw up, alert at once.

"You found something?" She nodded.

"Carmela Steno had a stent in her coronary artery that looks to have been placed in the last six months. It wouldn't have registered as something worth checking out; she was elderly, heart problems wouldn't be any sort of surprise. Except...." She pulled her autopsy notes out of her briefcase. "Gavin Meadows had a gash on his left leg, an injury sustained on the job four months ago, and it had clearly been sutured. And the notes from Barry Strickler's autopsy mention that x-rays showed a recently-broken arm. So I got to thinking-"

"They all received professional medical attention recently," said Mulder, swinging his legs off of the couch.

"Well, not _all_ the victims," said Scully. "I'd say about half. Not that remarkable by itself, except that we're not talking doctor's visits here- all of these instances are examples of emergency medical attention, not routine preventive care."

"Which could still be a coincidence," cautioned Mulder.

"It could," admitted Scully, "except that all of these victims, judging by the angles of their throat wounds, were murdered by the same killer." She took a deep breath. "Mulder, I'm almost positive that one of our killers is a hospital employee, possibly an emergency room employee. He's choosing his victims from people treated at the hospital where he works. He's choosing the names, and judging by how familiar he is with his victims' habits, and by how he knows exactly when and where to attack them, he's putting in weeks, maybe months of research."

"Meaning he's already got his share of the final three victims chosen," said Mulder. "We need to find out where all the victims received treatment, find out which doctors, nurses, radiologists, anesthesiologists treated them, find out who had access to the patient records- hell, it could be anyone, even a hospital administrator-"

"I think you're wrong there," said Scully. "These people were cut up far too neatly and efficiently. I think it's likely the killers have both had medical training of some sort. A hospital administrator is possible, I suppose, but not likely." Mulder nodded.

"That's good, that narrows it down," he said, jumping to his feet. "Let's get the victims' medical records, and we'll get started-"

"Mulder, no," said Scully, taking his arm. "Spagnolo and Morris have people who can do this part for us. You and I need to go back to the hotel and sleep, at least for a few hours, or we're not going to be any use to anybody."

"Scully, we can't hand this off now," argued Mulder.

"This part, we can," Scully insisted. "What we _can't_ hand off is interviewing any potential suspects that cross-referencing hospital records might turn up. Would you rather use up the rest of your energy reading lists of names, or save it for when we've actually got the guy in the interrogation room?" Mulder sighed, running his hands over his face in defeat.

"You're right, you're right," he said. "Let's get Spagnolo and Morris the info their people need and get back to the hotel."

 

\------------

 

HOLIDAY INN MIDTOWN, PHILADELPHIA  
3:30 PM

 

Mulder slung Scully's suitcase onto the armchair in her room. "Think I got everything you asked for," he said. "And I promise, when it came to your lingerie drawer, I was in and out as fast as possible. I didn't spend any time picturing you wearing each and every single item, and I absolutely did _not_ spend a single second contemplating whether or not to pack that lacy little black thing you had tucked in the corner." Scully felt herself go red.

"Is that why you got back almost two hours late?" she grumbled, sinking down to sit on her bed. Mulder suddenly looked uncomfortable.

"Well... no," he admitted. "I was late because I had a... visitor... at my apartment." Scully's head snapped up.

"Who?"

"Listen, Scully, I want you to hear me out before you get mad, okay?" Scully frowned, confused... and then understanding shot through her, and she felt a hot, sick swoop of anger in her gut.

"Diana." It wasn't a question. Mulder nodded sheepishly. "What did she want? How did she even know you'd be there, Mulder?"

"I have no idea how she knew. She showed up at my door when I'd only been there a few minutes, said she'd heard about the case and wanted to see how it was going."

"Why would she care? What business of hers could it possibly be?" Scully could hear the petulance in her own voice, the jealousy, and she hated herself for it, hated Diana for bringing out the worst in her.

"She claimed it sounded interesting, that's all, and she wanted to know what my take on it was so far. I told her to go, that I didn't have time right now." Scully snorted.

"I'm sure she loved that."

"Not much, no. She wasn't too happy with me," said Mulder, grinning. "Though to be honest, she hasn't been happy with me since the last time she showed up at my apartment unannounced." Scully raised her eyebrows.

"When was that? And do I want to know what happened?" Mulder came and sat down next to her on the bed, not looking at her.

"Scully," he said, his voice soft, "I owe you an apology." Scully's stomach clenched. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear whatever he was about to admit. She had suspected something was going on between Mulder and Diana; did she really want confirmation?

"What for?" she asked, her heart in her throat.

"First off, because I know why you feel the way you do about Diana, and I shouldn't have been trying to get you to admit it when you weren't comfortable with it," he said, reaching out and taking her hand. "Just like I think you know full well why I was so bothered by what happened the last time you were in Philadelphia." She opened her mouth to object, but Mulder cut her off. "Come on, Scully, you know." Scully thought about arguing, but he was right: she did know. A week ago, she'd had her suspicions, but now, after the way he'd kissed her, they were confirmed.

"I do know," she said softly. Mulder nodded, thankful to her for admitting it.

"And also, I feel like I need to apologize, not just for pretending I didn't know what you were talking about when you complained about the way Diana treats you- because I knew exactly what you meant- but because it's all my fault."

"How?" Mulder swallowed hard. 

"Diana came to my apartment a couple of weeks after Antarctica, after Gibson Praise disappeared. She tried... she tried...." He sighed, and when Scully chanced a look at him, his face was red. "Well, it doesn't really matter what she tried, Scully, because I turned her down." Scully felt her heart lightening. Mulder had turned Diana down? Whenever she had pictured the scenario Mulder was describing- and it was embarrassingly often- Mulder was always a willing participant. "She wasn't too happy with me. She wanted to know if I was pushing her away because of her and Spender taking the X-Files away from us, and I said no. Then she asked if I was turning her down because of you." He turned to her, holding her gaze, and suddenly she couldn't breathe. "And I said yes, Scully." For a moment, she could say nothing, could form no coherent thought at all. Mulder had turned Diana down for _her?_

"So this whole time," she said, her voice hoarse, "she's been treating me like scum of the earth because she's-"

"Jealous," finished Mulder, with a wry smile. "Diana's not used to being turned down like that, and I think she took it even worse because she assumed I was a sure thing."

"I think I need to apologize, too, Mulder," said Scully, ducking her head. "Because I made the same assumption Diana did. I thought you were hers for the taking."

"Scully," said Mulder gently, reaching out and cupping her cheek, forcing her to look up at him. "When Diana left me, I didn't go after her. I didn't even keep in touch, never responded to a single invitation for me to visit her in Europe." He moved closer to her. "I couldn't be bothered with a six-hour flight for her, Scully. For you, I chartered a plane to Antarctica." His other hand came up to tangle in her hair. "I need you to know that there is not a woman on earth you should ever feel threatened by. Not when it comes to me."

And there it was: the declaration Scully had been sure would never come. Not a simple "I love you," precisely, but when had they ever chosen the simple option? His eyes were still on hers, naked and vulnerable, and she realized he was waiting for an answer. She couldn't find the words- couldn't even remember how to form words, not really, not with him looking at her like that- but they'd always communicated better without words, anyway, and so it was completely in keeping with their partnership for her to answer by seizing him by his shoulders, throwing him on his back on the bed, straddling him, and kissing him with all of the fervor and passion she had kept locked away for years. He moaned into her mouth, his arms encircling her as he rolled her onto her back, settling into the vee of her parted thighs, thrusting against her so that she could feel his erection through their clothing. 

Scully knew, as Mulder tore frantically at the buttons on her blouse, that this would be no slow seduction. This would be a dam bursting, six years' repressed desires and fantasies erupting as violently as though a charge had been set off. The thought sent a thrill of excitement rushing through her, and she scrambled to help Mulder before he completely destroyed her clothing in his haste to remove it. He peeled off his t-shirt and flung it away, then attempted to maul her breasts through her bra, grunting in frustration as he fumbled with the clasp. She took pity on him and removed it herself, biting back a giggle... and her laughter died in her throat as he let out a guttural moan at the sight of her and dropped his head to her breasts, suckling and biting at her nipples, making her cry out and arch her back, pressing herself into him. She reached down and tried to undo his jeans, but she couldn't get a grip on his belt with him still thrusting against her. She grabbed his hips firmly, stilling his motions, and he looked up at her, his expression dazed with lust.

"Mulder," she said, "I promise you, this is going to be a lot better for both of us if you let me take your pants off." Her words seemed to take a moment to penetrate, but finally he reluctantly let go of her breasts and stood, unbuckling his pants and dropping them to the ground. She wiggled out of her own remaining clothing as he stepped out of his boxers, and she caught her breath at the sight of him, his erection standing out stiffly and impressively from his hips. _This is going to be fast,_ she thought to herself, somewhat regretfully. So before he could return to the bed and pin her under him, thus making her own climax less assured, she took control of the situation, turning away from him and crawling up to the head of the bed, leaning her chest into the headboard. She lifted her ass slightly, as if in invitation, and turned to look at Mulder over her shoulder.

He was staring at her with his mouth hanging open. "Scully," he moaned, his voice breaking. "Are you sure...?" She smiled.

"Get over here, Mulder," she said, with a toss of her head, and he didn't need to be told twice. He leapt onto the bed with the grace of a cat, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her, burying his face in her neck, nibbling at her earlobe as his hands caressed her breasts. She could feel his cock pressing insistently at her entrance, and the sensation caused a sudden rush of wetness between her legs. She moaned and pressed into him, unable to wait a moment longer. "Now, Mulder, please," she whispered. He backed off slightly, just enough to take himself in hand and position himself at her entrance. She gasped as he slid slowly into her, wriggling her hips to find the best angle, her muscles stretching to accommodate his girth. When he was all the way in, he paused for a moment, his breathing ragged against her neck, his arms holding her tightly against him, savoring the feel of being joined together. Slowly, he began to move, carefully at first, shaking with the effort of holding himself back, of controlling himself. She took one of his hands from her breasts, where he was gently rubbing her nipple between finger and thumb, and showed him where he could put it to better use. His long fingers began to circle her clit, gently at first, caressing and flicking, gauging what she liked by her reactions, and when he found the perfect rhythm she dropped her head back against his shoulder.

"Oh, Mulder, yeah, just like that," she gasped. He moaned and began moving faster, sliding in and out of her in a liquid tumult, and she shoved back at him with each thrust. The room was full of the sounds of their coupling, the sharp slap of their bodies meeting and the staccato rhythm of their breathing, Mulder gasping out her name, biting at her neck, losing control. Scully felt her orgasm rushing up on her fast, unexpectedly fast, and it hit her with the force of a freight train. She gasped and cried out Mulder's name as she climaxed, falling into the headboard as all the strength fled from her limbs at the sheer force of it. Mulder caught her, sitting back on the bed with her in his lap, continuing to thrust up into her at a frantic pace.

"Fuck, Scully!" he cried out, clasping her body against his as he emptied himself into her. He put a hand behind himself, leaning back and nearly falling onto the bed, Scully still sitting astride him, and fell to his side, spooning her close and kissing along her neck and shoulders as they both came back down. When she had finally caught her breath, Scully disentangled herself and rolled to face him, sliding her arms around his neck.

"Mulder, that was...." She found she did not have the words... or if she did, they were determinedly eluding her at that moment. He smiled.

"I know," he said, pulling her close. She buried her face in his neck, kissing his sweaty skin. Drowsiness was creeping up on her, and looking up at Mulder's half-lidded eyes, she could tell that a post-coital doze was stalking him, as well. With as little sleep as they'd both managed since arriving in Philadelphia she was amazed they'd both had the energy to manage what they'd just done. She pushed herself to a sitting position, Mulder making small noises of protest at the loss of her warmth. She tugged on his hand.

"Come on," she said, crawling back up to the head of the bed and turning down the covers. "We might be able to manage a few hours of sleep before we have to be back at the station." She lay down, patting the space beside her, which Mulder readily settled into, pulling her to lie on his chest. Scully drifted off to sleep to the sound of Mulder's heartbeat in her ear and the feel of his hands stroking her back.


	6. I Wage No Feud With Death

HOLIDAY INN MIDTOWN, PHILADELPHIA  
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13  
6:00 AM

 

He came awake slowly, aware first of a tingling numbness in one arm, then of a tickle across his face, and finally of a pleasant warmth pressed into his chest. He opened his eyes to a sweet-smelling sea of red, the source of the tickling that had woken him up, and realized his face was buried in the back of Scully's hair- she had rolled over as they had slept, and he was spooned up against her. The arm she was lying on was completely asleep. It was going to hurt like hell when sensation returned to it, he could tell, but the absolute last thing in the world he wanted to do was to move, to disturb her at all.

She felt better in his arms than he could possibly have imagined, a thousand times better, and he was amazed at how well her form fit into his, the way his knees tucked perfectly behind hers, how her hips fit just so in front of his, how his arm wrapped around her waist and up over her chest at a perfectly natural angle. He buried his face further in her hair and inhaled deeply, squeezing her tightly against his chest... and then caught sight of the clock on the nightstand, and remembered instantly why he'd always told himself that if and when he and Scully finally pushed things further, it should absolutely _not_ happen during a case. All he wanted to do was relax with her in his arms, wait for her to wake up on her own, and make love to her again when she did- slowly, this time, taking time to explore and discover each other in ways they hadn't had a chance to. But that would have to wait; they needed to get to the station and see what Spagnolo's people had found out.

The detectives had called Mulder the previous evening to let the agents know that they had gone through the medical records of the victims Scully had listed for them, and had found that all seven of them had been treated at the emergency room at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital within the past six months. They had obtained a list of people working in the ER on the dates the victims had been there, and were going to spend the evening trying to find staff who had been present for all of them. Mulder had woken Scully up just long enough to tell her (though she might not have absorbed all the information- she hadn't really woken up all the way), and then had passed back out again.

Mulder enjoyed the feel of her body cradled against his for one moment longer, before reaching up to stroke the side of her face. He pressed his lips to her neck and bent to her ear.

"Scully," he whispered, "time to wake up." 

"Mmmm." Scully didn't open her eyes, opting instead to snuggle closer. Mulder smiled.

"We're probably going to have to check in at the station soon, Scully," he said, brushing her hair back from her face. "We should get something to eat while we have time." She shifted in his arms to lie on her back, looking up at him through heavy-lidded blue eyes, smiling sleepily. She tugged the sheets up shyly, covering her breasts, and he stuck out his lip in a mock pout. She laughed.

"Why don't you go grab us some coffee and bagels?" she suggested. "I need to jump in the shower before we go anywhere."

"How about I join you, and we go together?" said Mulder, grinning and bending to place a line of kisses along her neck.

"Mulder," she said, wiggling out of his grasp, "you do that, and not only will we never get coffee- and you know what kind of trouble you'll be in if that happens- but we'll never make it back to the station." She scooped up his t-shirt from where it had landed on the floor, slipping it quickly over her head as she stood. Mulder stretched back out on the bed, admiring the toss of her narrow hips beneath his shirt as she strode across the floor to the bathroom. He had always assumed that Scully would likely be at least a little distant after their first time, and he was more than willing to give her some space to work through her emotions. He knew from long experience that forcing Scully to let him in before she was ready would be a mistake. So instead, he stood, pulled on his clothes from the day before, and ventured out in search of breakfast.

 

\----------

 

PHILADELPHIA POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
8:00 AM

 

"Spagnolo left a message for you," said the receptionist as Mulder and Scully entered the police station. "He needs you to meet him in Conference Room 3, down the hall and to your left."

"Thanks," said Mulder. "Any idea what's up?"

"Nope," shrugged the receptionist. "But Captain McLaughlin's in there with him and Morris, and Dr. O'Leary."

"Dr. O'Leary?" said Scully. "The chief medical examiner? I thought he was out on leave."

"He came back," said the receptionist. "And he don't look happy. Good luck."

 

Mulder and Scully could hear a heated argument before they were even halfway down the hall, Spagnolo's South Philly accent overwhelming all other voices.

"Yeah, well, what was we supposed to do, O'Leary?" he was demanding. "You wasn't here to do your job, and your people weren't exactly doin' their best work, so we had to call someone else in." Entering the conference room, the same one where Mulder had napped earlier, they found Spagnolo and Morris facing off against a stocky, imposing man who instantly reminded Mulder strongly of Skinner, and a tall, trim-looking older man in a suit and white lab coat. All four men turned to face the door as Mulder and Scully entered, and the man in the lab coat- Mulder assumed this was Dr. O'Leary- strode up to Scully with a look on his face that Mulder did not like at all. He just barely held himself back from stepping between them; Scully, he reminded himself, could take care of herself just fine, and any attempt by him to protect her would not be well-received.

"And you're the one who's been doing my autopsies?" O'Leary demanded, towering over Scully. She did not step back, only raised her eyebrows disdainfully, and Mulder had to suppress a grin.

" _Your_ autopsies?" she said. "Were the police supposed to leave the victims on ice until you could get to them?" O'Leary seemed to swell with anger.

"My office is staffed with fully-qualified pathologists who are more than capable of handling anything that comes into my morgue while I'm gone!"

"If that's the case," said Scully coldly, "how is it that they all missed the fact that a single killer was not responsible for all of the victims?" O'Leary's bushy gray eyebrows knit in anger as he continued to try and stare Scully down.

"And how do you draw a conclusion like that?" he asked, glowering.

"By the differences in the angles of the wounds on the victims' throats," Scully said. O'Leary waved his hand dismissively.

"That could be explained away by any number of factors," he said. "Curbs, steps, rocks-"

"All of which your pathologists would have known to discount," said Scully, "had any of them viewed the crime scene photographs."

"Is this true?" asked Captain McLauglin, speaking for the first time, and his resemblance to Skinner was only intensified by his stern, calm voice. "You and your people missed a crucial detail like this?" O'Leary was flustered.

"We never saw any crime scene photographs," he protested. "No one provided them to us."

"And you couldn't have requested them?" countered McLaughlin. "Wouldn't that have been the logical thing to do, as soon as you noticed even the possibility of more than one killer?" O'Leary was silent. "You didn't notice, did you, Brian?"

"I have been Chief Medical Examiner here for eleven years, McLauglin, since before you were even a beat cop. Where do you get off questioning my competence?"

"Nobody's tryin' to say you don't know your stuff, Brian," interjected Spagnolo.

" _I_ am," said McLaughlin calmly. "This was a big miss, Dr. O'Leary. A potentially catastrophic miss." He turned to Mulder and Scully. "Agent Scully will conduct the autopsies on any future victims. Dr. O'Leary, you can assist, if you wish." O'Leary opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, too furious for words. With a final, murderous look at Scully, who regarded him calmly, he spun on his heel and stormed out. McLaughlin sighed. "He won't show up for any of them, Agent Scully. I guarantee you," he said.

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, Captain, but there was no need to offend Dr. O'Leary on my behalf," said Scully.

"Yes, there was," said McLaughlin, and Morris snorted with laughter. "He's a pompous jackass and he needs to be taken down a peg every now and then. And an oversight like this is enough to warrant taking him off this case." He eyed Mulder and Scully speculatively before extending his hand. "Captain Tom McLaughlin," he said, shaking their hands. "Sorry I didn't get to introduce myself before O'Leary went off at you. That was a nice catch with the height differences, Agent Scully."

"Thank you, Captain."

"And Agent Mulder." He turned to Mulder, eyebrows raised. "A week ago, I would have said your Jack the Ripper theory was one hell of a crazy leap... but now, after these last three...." He shook his head. "At least we have something to go on."

"Before O'Leary came bustin' in, we was about to tell the Captain that we got a potential suspect," said Spagnolo. "We got someone bringin' him in now for questioning." Mulder was impressed.

"That was quick," he said. "Who is he?"

"Dr. Daniel Kellerman," said Morris. "Resident of emergency medicine at UPenn. He's the only one who was on staff during all seven victims' ER visits."

"A doctor fits the profile," said Scully. "And he'd have access to any and all patient information he might need."

"The officers we sent out to UPenn oughta be back any minute," said Spagnolo. "Youse guys wanna sit in while we question Kellerman?"

"If it's all right with you, Captain McLaughlin, we'd like that very much," said Mulder. McLaughlin nodded amicably.

"Fine by me. Report back to me as soon as the interrogation's over, let me know what you've found out." He left, heading down the hall to his own office. Morris turned to Mulder and Scully.

"Any thoughts on our second killer yet?" he asked. "Another doctor?"

"Definitely someone with medical training, I think," said Scully. "But if it's another doctor, I can't see what his connection to the remaining five victims could be. None of them received care at a hospital- not recently, at any rate- and none of them saw the same general practitioners or specialists."

"All of their names are together on a list somewhere, though," said Mulder. "There's something they did, probably recently, that led to their names and addresses showing up on a database that was then accessed by someone with medical training."

"Hey!" exclaimed Spagnolo. "What about blood donation? I get stuck by Red Cross a coupla times a year, and they always make me verify my info's still right before they let me donate. Any chance these guys gave blood sometime not too long ago?" Mulder looked to Scully, who appeared to be mulling the idea over.

"I suppose a phlebotomist could be possible," she conceded. "It's worth a look, at least. Can you contact local blood banks and see if any of our victims show up on their registers?" 

"On it," said Morris, turning to leave the room... but before he could, there was a commotion in the hallway, and the door was thrown open. Three officers rushed in, looking panicked.

"Spags," said one of them, "we got a problem."

"What?" demanded Spagnolo. "Where's the perp, Carrillo? He in the room already?"

"No, man, that's the problem," said Carrillo. "We showed up at the ER to take Kellerman for questioning, and he fucking took off! Shoved a nurse and an IV stand at us and ran off through the hospital. We chased him, we got security on his tail but..." Carrillo shook his head. "The nurses say he's been at that hospital forever, Spags. It was nothin' for him to hide from us. We put out an APB, but we got nothin' yet." Spagnolo swore.

"What the hell do we do now?" he said.

"We need to figure out next victim," said Scully. "There'll be three more, right, Mulder?" Mulder nodded. "Either one or two of them will be taken by Kellerman."

"Probably just one," said Mulder. "His count's at seven; the second killer's only got five. If they're splitting them, Kellerman's ahead." 

"And we know they're being chosen well in advance," continued Scully, "because of how well the killers know their victims' patterns. Meaning Kellerman already has his next mark. If we can figure out who that is, we might be able to catch him going after them."

"Or at least keep his last victim safe," said Mulder. "Detective Spagnolo, we need a complete list of every patient Dr. Kellerman treated over the past six months. We need to go through the names and find any that sound right."

" _Sound_ right?" Carrillo looked confused.

"Mary Kelly," said Morris. "That's the last victim, right?" Mulder nodded. "So we need any names, male or female, that sound similar to Mary Kelly." Carrillo was aghast.

"You know how many that could be?" he groaned.

"We can count out anyone in the suburbs," said Morris thoughtfully. "All the victims have been in the city. None on the outskirts."

"What about kids?" asked Carrillo. "I mean, it's all been adults so far, but...." The thought was too awful to finish. Spagnolo looked at Mulder.

"You think they'll change their pattern like that?" he asked. Mulder shook his head.

"Doesn't seem likely," he said. "It's just intuition, but... no, I think both the killers will stick with adult victims. It's much harder to get kids on their own in the streets at night."

"Yeah, but Mulder...." Morris looked as though he had just had a disturbing thought. "Mary Kelly wasn't killed on the streets, was she?" Mulder froze, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Morris was right: Mary Kelly had been murdered in her rented room.

"I completely forgot," he said. "Okay... children's names too, then. Just in case."

"All right," said Spagnolo, taking control of the situation. "Carrillo, you get a list of the good doctor's patients and bring it back here with whatever officers you can find sittin' around. We'll divide it up and see what we got. Morris, you go look into the blood donor thing." Morris, Carrillo, and the other officers left, and Spagnolo began to follow them.

"Where are you going?" asked Mulder. Spagnolo heaved a sigh.

"I'm goin' to tell the Captain we just set a mass murderer loose on the streets of Philly because Carrillo lost a fight with an ER nurse and an IV stand," he said. 

"Captain McLaughlin seemed pretty level-headed," said Scully. "It'll be fine." Spagnolo shook his head, hunching his shoulders, and for a moment Mulder had an idea of how he himself probably looked on his way into Skinner's office for his bi-weekly chewing out.

"If I don't come back, good luck with the rest of the investigation," he said, and headed off to meet his doom.


	7. Come Not When I Am Dead

PHILADELPHIA POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13  
1:00 PM

 

"Hot damn, I think we got it!"

Scully, who had been dozing on and off, the patient record before her sliding in and out of focus, jerked upright as Detective Spagnolo came charging into the conference room, waving a sheaf of papers in his hand. Across the table, Mulder leapt to his feet, taking the papers from Spagnolo and studying them.

"Terri Sellers," he read. "Age thirty-seven. Third grade teacher at Penn Alexander Elementary; lives at 631 Bainbridge Street. Saw Dr. Kellerman in the emergency room in early September for a sprained wrist." He looked up. "The name sounds right. Nobody's found anything else promising, have they?"

"I know I haven't," said Scully, leaning back in her chair and stretching her arms. 

"Nope, nothin' yet," agreed Spagnolo. "This is the closest we've come. None of Kellerman's other patients' names are even the littlest bit close to Mary Kelly as this one."

It had taken most of the previous day- and a warrant- to get the hospital to release patient records to the police department, and another two hours to get the records narrowed down, gathered together, and transported to the police station. Everyone available had pored over them late into the night without success; Dr. Kellerman had worked long hours and had seen a daunting number of patients in the past six months. They had broken for the night at almost midnight, at which point Scully and Mulder had gone back to the hotel just long enough to stagger into their (separate) beds and sleep until five the next morning. With no clear idea of when the next attack would come, no one wanted to waste a single second identifying possible victims.

"It's a school day," said Scully, glancing up at the clock. "What are the chances we can catch her at school, before she has time to go home?"

"Pretty good, I'd say," said Spagnolo. "We'll get some cars down there and-"

"Wait, no," said Mulder. "We need to send one unmarked car, no uniforms. We know Kellerman's been watching his victims; there's every chance he's watching her now. We should have squad cars within a few blocks to keep an eye out for him, but whoever goes to see Terri Sellers at her school needs to be unobtrusive and unremarkable."

"You got a point," agreed Spagnolo. 

"So we need to get her to safety, and then we stake out her house," said Scully. "But we don't know for how long."

"I don't think it'll be long at all," said Mulder. "Kellerman knows we're onto him, so he's not going to want to waste any time."

"Won't that throw off his partner?" asked Spagnolo. "If they got this planned, what's the other killer gonna do if Kellerman makes his move ahead of schedule?"

"My guess is, he'll go with it," said Mulder. "He won't risk leaving things uncompleted, not with only two victims to go. It might make him sloppy, because he might have to adapt the time of attack if the victim's movements are different than what they would have been on the planned night."

"And if Terri Sellers was supposed to be the first victim of this cycle?" asked Scully. "If the remaining two were supposed to belong to the other killer, and he's waiting for Kellerman to make his move, what happens if Kellerman's not there to begin the cycle?"

"That's why we absolutely have to bring in Kellerman _alive_ ," said Mulder. "Right now, he's the only lead we have on the second killer's identity. Unless your blood donation theory panned out, Spagnolo?"

"Nah," said the detective glumly. "Total dead end. Only two of the other victims ever gave blood, and it was to two different places."

"It was still a great idea," said Scully. "But Mulder's right: Kellerman is our best chance at catching the other killer. We need him alive for questioning."

 

\--------------

 

PENN ALEXANDER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL  
4209 SPRUCE STREET  
3:30 PM

 

Terri Sellers was a petite woman with masses of unruly brown curls falling past her shoulders. She entered Principal Tom Marshall's office at Penn Alexander Elementary looking politely confused, glancing around at the unfamiliar faces. Mulder and Scully had decided to come in alone, leaving Spagnolo and Morris parked across the street in another car to watch the school's entrance, with three other unmarked cars circling the area, in case Kellerman showed up.

"What on earth is going on?" asked Terri Sellers, looking at the principal in total bewilderment. "Tom, I got called out of a parent-teacher conference, and your secretary told me there are FBI agents waiting to speak with me?!" Mulder stepped forward, holding out his badge.

"Ms. Sellers, I'm Special Agent Mulder, and this is my partner, Special Agent Dana Scully," he said. "We're helping the police investigate the serial murders that have been going on here since September. I presume you're aware of the case?"

"Of course I am; who isn't?" said Terri. "My mother's been begging me to come stay with her in Jersey for the past two weeks because she's so paranoid about me being alone in the city right now. But what's that got to do with me?"

"Ms. Sellers, there's really no easy way to say this," said Scully gently, "but we have reason to believe you may be among our suspect's potential targets. We're here to escort you to the police station so that we can make a plan for your safe removal from the city, until such time as the killer has been apprehended." Terri's mouth hung open in shock.

" _Me?_ " she said faintly. "But what possible reason could he have to come after _me_? I'm... I'm nobody, I'm just a regular person, there's nothing that could make anyone want to hurt me!"

"All of the victims so far have been regular, everyday people, with almost nothing to link them," said Mulder. "The only thing they had in common, other than being residents of this city, is that they were all recently treated in the emergency room at UPenn Hospital, treated by the same person. That person is now on the run, and of the people he's treated in the past six months, you are the only one who fits the criteria we believe he's looking for."

"But... how can you be sure?" asked Terri. "I mean... UPenn's the biggest hospital in the city, tons of people go out of their way to go there when it's an emergency, because they're so good... couldn't it just be coincidence that they all went there, and this guy who treated me has nothing to do with it?"

"We might have entertained that possibility," said Scully, "except that when police approached the suspect for questioning, he became violent and fled. Those are not the actions of an innocent man. We have every officer in the city looking for him, and we took his vehicle from the hospital parking lot, so he can't get far, but until we can bring him in, we think it would be best if you were out of harm's way. We'll walk with you to your car-"

"My car's at home," interrupted Terri. "I don't drive to work; I take the bus. Parking around here is impossible."

"All right, you can ride to the station with us," said Mulder. "From there, we'll have officers escort you to your home so that you can pack whatever you might need for a few days out of town."

"I can't leave town," protested Terri. "There's a student's parents waiting in my classroom for me to come back and- my classes! I can't leave, it's the middle of the week!"

"We'll take care of that, Terri," interrupted the principal, who had sat silent thus far, aghast at the news. "I'll go talk to the parents and explain you've had an emergency come up, and we'll get a substitute. I think you should do what these people are telling you." Terri stared at him, her lips pursed, clearly thinking it over... and finally, she gave a tight nod.

"All right," she conceded. "Let me get my things and we'll go."

 

\------------

 

PHILADELPHIA POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
5:00 PM

 

"NO. Absolutely not." 

"Mulder, this is the most logical option."

"Scully, you must be insane if you think I'm going to agree to this."

"We need a decoy, Mulder. Kellerman needs to think that Terri Sellers is home, otherwise we stand absolutely zero chance of drawing him out into the open."

The argument had been going on for some fifteen minutes- first out in the open, with Spagnolo and Morris standing open-mouthed at Mulder's sudden and vehement disapproval of Scully's plan, and then in the conference room with the door shut when Scully sensed Mulder was in danger of veering into territory best left between them.

"There's no reason it needs to be you, Scully," Mulder insisted. "Philly PD must have female officers who can do it instead."

"None who are already involved in this case," countered Scully, "and I do not want to bring in someone else to do this when it was _my_ idea. I'm almost the same size as Terri Sellers, we're the same build, and hair like hers would be easy to duplicate with a wig. And I'm likely to be better trained than any random female officer plucked from the streets." Mulder said nothing, but continued to glower at her. Scully sighed. "Mulder, you know this is the best option. I'll be perfectly safe; the house's entrances are ridiculously easy to keep under constant surveillance. The officers watching will know the moment anyone tries to get in. They'll be on him before he knows what hit him." The layout of Terri Sellers' Bainbridge Street row home had been a huge stroke of luck. The front and back doors were easily visible from any vantage point, and there were only two ground-floor windows, one in the front and one in the back, both with security bars on them. The home had been under constant surveillance since the moment its owner had been identified as the next victim.

"You really think if we slap a wig on you, Kellerman's going to think you're her? Scully, he's been watching her for months. He knows what she looks like."

"So we have me leave before dawn and return after sundown," said Scully. "It'll be harder for him to tell in the dark. And he has no reason to suspect we're onto the way he's been choosing his victims, so why would he expect an imposter? In an hour's time, we'll even have her car here. I'd say I'll make a pretty believable decoy." Immediately after arriving at the station, Terri Sellers had been driven to her home in an unmarked car. She'd packed as much as could fit in a workout bag, making it appear as though she was going to the gym, had gotten in her car, and had driven towards the Walt Whitman Bridge with the police following her. Just before the bridge, she had moved from her car into the officers' car to be driven the remainder of the distance to her mother's home across the river in New Jersey, and an officer was at that moment driving Terri's car back to the station. With an APB out on Kellerman's car and his face plastered in every public bus, subway car, and taxicab, Mulder and Scully felt it was likely he was staying close to Terri's home, keeping an eye out and waiting for his moment.

"I wouldn't care if it had turned out that Terri Sellers was your perfect doppelgänger, Scully," said Mulder heatedly. "I still wouldn't want you sitting alone in that house waiting for him, and you know it."

"You think I'm not capable?" demanded Scully. "With everything we've been through, everything I've done, you think I can't handle sitting in a well-guarded empty house for a few nights?"

"Whether or not you're capable doesn't even enter into it," said Mulder. "Scully...." He swallowed hard. "I almost lost you just a few months ago. Don't ask me to let you put yourself in harm's way like this again. Not now." The naked fear in his voice nearly took Scully's breath away, and her gaze softened.

"Oh, Mulder," she said, taking his hand. "I know. But that can't enter into this." He started to shake his head, but she reached up and took his chin, forcing him to look at her. "If this is going to keep you from taking the course of action you _know_ makes the most sense, Mulder... then I'm sorry, but it can't go any further." His eyes widened. "I love you, Mulder, but we have a job to do, and if you want us to stay partners, this can't get in the way." He held her gaze a moment longer... then, finally, his head fell.

"I know you're right," he said, sighing. "Doesn't mean that I like it, but... you're right."

"Listen, Mulder, you'll be on the scene the whole time, if that'll make you feel better," said Scully. "You'll be able to see him and grab him the moment he makes his move."

"I know," said Mulder. "I wish I could be in the house with you, at least."

"I do, too, but Terri Sellers lives alone and isn't seeing anyone," said Scully. "If a strange man goes home with her every night, Kellerman's going to know something's up." There was a knock at the door, and Spagnolo stuck his head in, looking apprehensive. Scully dropped Mulder's hand.

"Youse guys make your minds up?" he asked. "We gotta get movin' soon." Scully gave Mulder one more reassuring look, then turned to Spagnolo.

"We're ready," she said firmly. "Let's find me a wig."

 

\-----------

 

TERRI SELLERS' ROW HOME  
631 BAINBRIDGE STREET  
8:00 PM

 

Scully found herself more than a little jealous of the amount of space Terri Sellers had to sprawl out in. Her brick townhouse had three floors, not counting the basement, plus a roof deck from which both the skyscrapers at Center City and the lights of the Ben Franklin Bridge were visible. The house had a large, modern kitchen and a graceful living room and dining room on the first floor, an elegant and airy master bedroom on the second, and an office and second bedroom on the top floor. Scully wandered from room to room, taking careful note of all closets, alcoves, and other potential hiding places. She made sure that the front and back doors, as well as the door to the roof deck, were securely locked and bolted, and checked that the latches on all of the windows were in place. She had been nervous getting out of the car and entering the building, her hand on her gun the whole time, but she believed Mulder when he said the last three victims would be attacked indoors, as Mary Kelly had been over a hundred years before.

Her tour of the house done, Scully settled herself in the living room. It was in the center of the house, away from the windows (over which she'd drawn the curtains), so she felt safe removing the curly brown wig Morris had found for her. She stretched out on the couch, at a loss for what to do next. She had just decided to check the bookshelves in Terri's office for something interesting when her phone rang, making her jump. She answered it.

"This is Scully."

"Scully, it's me." Her face relaxed into a smile.

"Mulder, what are you doing calling me?"

"I felt weird, sitting out here with you in there. I just wanted to hear your voice. Everything okay in there?"

"Everything's fine," she reassured him. "All locked up tight for the night. I was just thinking of making some coffee and finding a book to read." They had agreed that Scully would stay up at night- if Kellerman got past the officers watching the house, she couldn't be caught unaware- and sleep at the hotel during the day. "I wish I'd known I'd be doing this. I would've gone to bed earlier last night. It's going to be a long night."

"I bet I could help with that."

"Mulder...."

"What are you wearing?" His voice was a sultry purr.

_"Mulder."_

"Sorry. Just trying to help."

"I appreciate that, Mulder, but it's going to be hard for you-" He snickered. " _Difficult_ for you to fulfill your function here if you're... otherwise occupied."

"Fair point." She had an awful thought.

"You're alone in that car, right? Spagnolo and Morris didn't hear that?" He laughed.

"All alone, don't worry. Spagnolo and Morris have the other side of the street. Carrillo and three other officers are on rooftops around the back."

"So I'm well-guarded, Mulder," she said. "You can relax."

"Scully, I'm not going to relax until you're back in the hotel with the door locked behind you. Preferably with me on the same side."

"I know, Mulder," she said gently. "Listen, I'm gonna go read for awhile, okay? I'll call you in a few hours."

"Okay, Scully. See you at five AM sharp."

"Goodnight, Mulder."

"Night, Scully."


	8. Break, Break, Break

TERRI SELLERS' ROW HOME  
631 BAINBRIDGE STREET  
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16  
11:30 PM

 

Mulder was doing his level best to keep his eyes open, trying to stay alert with his eyes trained on the front door of Terri Sellers' house... but this was his fourth night sitting out here, and much to Scully's annoyance, he wasn't sleeping much during the daytime. He was too keyed-up, too full of nervous energy, and he'd spent most of every day at the station, trying to chase down leads on the second killer's identity. He had insisted Scully go back to the hotel every morning as soon as she left Bainbridge Street, but instead of following her there, he had instead barricaded himself in a conference room at the station, surrounded by crime scene photos, autopsy reports, and witness statements, trying (and failing) to make new connections between the remaining five victims. They had not attended any of the same schools, had never worked at any of the same places, were not members of the same gyms, had never attended the same churches; there was no common thread that Mulder could see that would have put all five names together in a place where the killer could have found them.

Four nights. Four long, boring nights. He had sat alone in his car, parked across the street from the house, watching the surrounding sidewalks like a hawk, resisting the urge to call Scully more often than every few hours. She, on the other hand, was busily working her way through Terri Sellers' impressive library. Unable to fill his own hours the same way, Mulder had, at least once each night, asked Scully to read aloud to him over the phone. For the first three nights she refused, claiming it would distract him, but tonight, she had read to him for over an hour. He couldn't say, if asked, what book she had been reading from; he had mostly just sat there and reveled in the sound of her voice in his ear. 

The sidewalks were slightly busier tonight than they had been so far. One block away, Philadelphia's iconic South Street pulsed with life, groups of revelers sometimes spilling over onto Bainbridge as people made their way home. Mulder thought it unlikely that Kellerman would try to force his way in this early in the night, with so many potential witnesses around... and as he just barely jerked himself out of a doze for the second time in fifteen minutes, he gave up, and dialed Scully.

"Mulder," she said as soon as she picked up, "didn't I tell you not to call again until at least two?"

"I can't keep my eyes open, Scully," he said. "If we don't get him tonight, tomorrow night I'm getting Spagnolo to sit in here with me."

"It must be bad if you're thinking about voluntarily sharing space with someone," Scully mused. "I mean someone other than me, that is."

"Yeah, but sharing space with you has all kinds of perks, Scully," Mulder said. "I bet if I were sharing space with you right now, staying awake wouldn't be anywhere near as much of a problem as it has been."

"It wouldn't be as much of a problem if you were sleeping during the day," she said.

"I can't shut my brain down," said Mulder, sighing. "Not when we still can't identify the second killer. Whenever I try to sleep, I can't relax."

"I have an idea, Mulder," said Scully, and he could almost hear the smile in her voice. "How about when we finish up here, we grab something to eat, go back to the hotel, and I make _sure_ we can get you to relax?" Mulder's breath caught at her forthrightness. 

"I think...." He swallowed hard. "I think that sounds like a great idea."

"It's a date, then," she said. "Now hang up the phone and don't call me again until at least two."

 

As the clock crept closer to one in the morning, the groups of people making their way down the street became fewer and farther in between. Mulder was, once again, splitting his time between fighting to stay awake and fighting to keep from calling Scully. Deciding to split the difference, he called Spagnolo to check in instead.

"Yo, Mulder, how's it goin'?" Spagnolo sounded obscenely wide awake for this hour on the fourth night of an unsuccessful stakeout.

"Just barely keeping my eyes open over here," said Mulder. "How about you?"

"I got Morris here talkin' my ear off about the history of London's East District," complained Spagnolo.

"East _End,_ you idiot," Mulder heard Morris grouse.

"Yeah, whatever," said Spagnolo. "Point is, I'm gettin' real jealous of you over in that empty car, man."

"I might trade you," admitted Mulder. "I'm having a hard time staying awake. Think I'm going to have to skip the station tomorrow and go back to the hotel. I gotta get some honest-to-god sleep."

"Yeah, I got you, man," said Spagnolo genially. "We just gotta get through a few more hours and- what, what is it, Morris?" Morris's voice was a quiet murmur this time, difficult to make out. "Yeah, yeah, I see him. Mulder, we got a tall guy in a hoodie, our side of the street. You see him?" Mulder looked up and down the sidewalk across from him, instantly zeroing in on the solitary figure striding along the street.

"Yeah, I see him," said Mulder, sitting up straighter. "Is he slowing down?"

"Definitely slowing down," said Spagnolo. "This could be it." Mulder could hear Morris on the radio, informing the other officers.

"Carrillo, Amos, Stephens, we got a single man, six-two, six-three, wearing a hoodie, approaching the front door."

"Mulder, you wanna call Scully, let her know to be ready?" asked Spagnolo.

"Yeah, I'm on it," Mulder said, hanging up and dialing Scully as quickly as he could. The man across the street had slowed almost to a stop in front of Terri Sellers' house.

 _"Mulder,"_ said Scully, clearly exasperated, "I told you not until-"

"Scully," said Mulder, his voice low and quick, his heart in his throat as he drew his own weapon. "We've got a tall guy in a hoodie, can't see his face, and he just stopped outside your front door. This could be it."

"Okay, Mulder, I'm ready," said Scully, no trace of a tremor in her voice.

"Where in the house are you?" asked Mulder.

"I'm in the office on the third floor," said Scully. "In the back of the house."

"Don't come to the front and look out the window," said Mulder. "Stay where you are."

"What's he doing?" asked Scully.

"Just standing there," said Mulder. "If we could just see his face and make the ID, this would be over."

"It might not be him, Mulder," cautioned Scully. "There've been people walking up and down this street all night. It's the weekend, and this is a popular place."

"This is the first guy we've seen alone in hours," he said. "But don't worry, we'll hold off until he makes a move." As Mulder watched, the man on the sidewalk appeared to be searching his pockets, pulling something out... and then, abruptly, he continued walking, jogging up the front steps of the house next to Terri Sellers', unlocking the door, entering, and shutting it behind him. Mulder released the breath he'd been holding as lights in the house began to come on. "Never mind, Scully," Mulder said. "False alarm. It's the resident next door." He heard Scully sigh.

"Dammit, I thought for a moment there this was going to be the last night," said Scully. "Okay, well, talk to you in about an hour, Mulder."

"Wait a second, you don't have to hang up, we can keep-"

"In an hour, Mulder," said Scully firmly, and hung up. Mulder sank back into his seat with a sigh, feeling the adrenaline of a moment ago draining away, leaving him somehow more exhausted than he'd been before. He closed his eyes, just for a moment... and jumped about a mile, grabbing reflexively for his gun, as Morris rapped sharply on the window of his car. Cursing, Mulder re-holstered his gun and rolled the window down.

"Mulder, I think we got a problem," said Morris hurriedly, without preamble. Spagnolo was standing behind him, gun drawn, looking up at the houses apprehensively. "Sellers told us her next-door neighbors in that house are a professional couple that commute between here and New York, and _they're not supposed to be home tonight._ " 

"Spagnolo, come in," crackled the radio at Spagnolo's hip. "This is Carrillo. We got someone climbing onto the roof deck. I repeat, suspect is on the roof."

Mulder vaulted out of the car, dialing Scully faster than ever before, his heart beating wildly in his throat.

 

As soon as she hung up on Mulder, Scully sank back down into an armchair in the corner of the office, shaking her head, thinking to herself that it would be a miracle if Mulder did manage to hold off calling her again for another hour. She had pretended, to him, to be exasperated, but really, she found it at least a little endearing- though she knew that, if she let that slip to Mulder, even a little, he would become twice as incorrigible. 

Scully opened the book she had been reading, but found she couldn't concentrate. Something about what Mulder had just told her didn't seem to add up. The threads of their conversation chased through her mind, not quite untangling enough for her to spot the piece that didn't fit. She began to read.

"The night was clear and his head felt as clear and cold as the air."

_The man out front had gone in the house to the left._

"He smelled the odor of the pine boughs under him, the piney smell of the crushed needles..."

_Spagnolo had pulled background information on the neighbors._

"...and the sharper odor of the resinous sap from the cut limbs."

_The house to the right was vacant, up for sale._

"Pilar, he thought. Pilar and the smell of death."

_The owners of the house to the left were in New York this week._

"This is the smell I love."

_The man who had just entered the house next door did NOT live there._

At the precise moment the final realization settled into her brain, Scully heard a scuffling tread on the roof above her. _Kellerman was on the roof,_ she realized, just as her phone began to trill on the end table next to her. She switched off the light and picked up her phone with her left hand, unholstering her gun and flicking off the safety with her right.

"Scully, he's-"

"I know," she hissed, creeping into the hall and removing the chain from the door to the roof deck. "He's on the roof. I'm un-chaining the door-"

 _"Hide,_ Scully," said Mulder. "If he sees you, he'll know right away what's going on."

"He's going to look for her in the bedroom," whispered Scully. "I'll hide up here and cover the door after her goes down to the second floor."

"Scully, no, let us-"

"Turning off the phone," said Scully firmly. She hung up before Mulder could respond, stowing the now-silenced phone in her pocket and concealing herself carefully behind the open office door, just as quiet footsteps began making their way down the stairs from the roof deck. She heard scraping on the lock- Kellerman must be picking it- and held her breath as the door to the third-floor hallway creaked slowly open. She heard Kellerman close the door softly behind him, and in the silence that followed, she could swear she heard his breathing in the hallway, not ten feet from where she stood. _Go downstairs,_ she silently pleaded, _please, go downstairs...._ She heard his footsteps continue down the hall, past her door, and- blessedly- he was finally making his way downstairs. Scully slipped out of her shoes and slowly, slowly tiptoed out of the office, staying on the carpet runner in the center of the hallway, and silently took up a post just around the corner from the stairs to the second floor, across from the door to the roof deck, and waited. She could hear Kellerman walking down the hallway beneath her, towards the closed door of the master bedroom... in a moment, he would discover it was empty....

There was an almighty crash on the first floor, followed immediately by a stampede of footsteps as what sounded like every officer in Philadelphia came running through the front door at top speed. Scully just made out a shouted curse from the second floor, where Kellerman had undoubtedly realized he'd been caught in their trap. She heard what sounded like Kellerman making his way back to the stairs, most likely hoping to escape the way he'd come in, and holding her gun at the ready, she stepped closer to the top of the stairs and yelled, "Federal agent! You're surrounded, Kellerman!" Kellerman rounded the stairs, a wicked-looking knife clutched in his hand, and caught sight of her, standing waiting at the top, her gun aimed at him. His eyes widened in panic, and he spun to go back downstairs just as officers appeared at the foot of the staircase. Acting in pure desperation now, Kellerman charged them, brandishing his knife- and a shot rang out.

 _"NO!"_ Scully heard Mulder shout. "We need him alive!" But the officers in front either did not hear him or could not master their panic, because there was another gunshot, followed by a heavy thump as Kellerman hit the floor. Scully ran down to the first landing, rounding the corner to see Kellerman lying at the foot of the stairs in a rapidly-expanding pool of blood, Mulder, Carrillo, and Spagnolo standing over him. His chest heaved and his eyes darted around, blood pouring from wounds at his shoulder and his chest. Scully pounded down the rest of the stairs, kicked Kellerman's knife out of his hand, and knelt at his side, ripping open his shirt and pressing her bare hand to the hole above his heart... but she knew it was too late. Kellerman's eyes fluttered shut and his breathing stopped. Dimly, she heard Carrillo saying he'd tried to shoot Kellerman's shoulder first, but he had kept coming as though he didn't even feel it. Scully knew Carrillo had had no other option, but as she looked up and met Mulder's eyes, she knew they were both thinking the same thing.

Their last, best chance at identifying the second killer was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book Scully is reading is Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls."


	9. Sweet And Low

PHILADELPHIA MEDICAL EXAMINER'S OFFICE  
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17  
5:30 PM

 

Scully had concluded her autopsy on Daniel Kellerman and had just finished changing out of her borrowed scrubs when the locker room door flew open. Dr. Brian O'Leary strode in, eyes flashing.

"I didn't hear you knock, Dr. O'Leary," said Scully coolly, strapping her shoulder holster back on and shrugging into her blazer.

"Probably because I didn't, Miss Scully," he replied. He poked among the items sitting on the table by the door, the contents of Scully's pockets that she'd removed before changing- her wallet, her hotel room key, her badge, which he flipped open briefly.

"Was there something you needed?" Scully asked, scooping up the items on the table and returning them quickly to her pockets.

"I was wondering how it was that you ended up doing this autopsy," said O'Leary. "Daniel Kellerman was not one of the victims, so I fail to see-"

"Captain McLaughlin requested that I perform the autopsy," said Scully, cutting him off. "If you have a problem with it, I suggest you take it up with him. You're welcome to review my notes, if you wish." She took her coat from its hook on the wall and pulled it on. "For now, my partner is expecting me back at the station." O'Leary leaned up against the doorframe, making no move to let Scully by.

"Ah, yes, your partner," he said derisively. "I looked him up, after I found out all this ridiculous 'Jack the Ripper' nonsense started with him. I understand that outlandish theories and off-the-wall predictions are par for the course for him?" Scully bristled.

"I wouldn't call any of this an 'outlandish theory,' Dr. O'Leary," she said coldly. "Not when he's been right on the money the entire time." She buttoned her coat. "Now if you'll excuse me...." O'Leary continued to glare down at her, and for one long moment, Scully thought she'd have to physically shoulder past him to get through the door... but finally, he stepped to the side. Without a backward glance, Scully swept past him and down the hall, feeling his cold eyes on her back the entire time.

 

\----------

 

PHILADELPHIA POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
6:00 PM

 

The faces around the conference table when Scully approached were a mixture of relief, apprehension, and dejection. The stakeout had ended without Scully or any of the officers being harmed, but it had also ended with Kellerman in the morgue instead of in a jail cell. So while he would never be slitting anyone's throat ever again, he would also not be answering any questions about the identity of his partner... and without that crucial information, no one had any idea what the next forty-eight hours would bring. They had managed to keep Kellerman's identity and involvement with the case out of the press; as of now, the public thought that what had happened in Teri Sellers' home had been a robbery interrupted.

"The question," Mulder was saying, as Scully approached the table, "is whether or not the dates of the attacks were planned ahead of time. If they were, we can expect another attack tonight. If not... it's anyone's guess." He caught sight of Scully approaching the table. "Hey, Scully! Come on in, we saved you some pizza." He indicated the empty seat beside him, which she sank into, exhausted. Opening the pizza box in front of her, she discovered two still-warm slices, covered with mushroom and peppers, and she smiled gratefully at Mulder as she drew one out. "Anything interesting in the autopsy?"

"Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary," said Scully. "Kellerman was in perfect health. I sent his blood for a tox screen, but I don't really expect to find anything. He seemed perfectly lucid when he broke into Sellers' home." Mulder nodded.

"Seemed lucid coming down the stairs at us, too," he agreed. "What's the plan for tonight?" he asked Spagnolo.

"We got everyone available walkin' the streets," said Spagnolo. "All precincts called in everyone they got to patrol. Ain't gonna be a single block in the city without one cop on it."

"Which may or may not help," said Morris glumly. "Since we're expecting the last two to be killed indoors, not on the streets."

"But it could make it difficult for the killer to break in somewhere," said Mulder. "Anything we can do to make him panic, make him sloppy, could make it easier for us to catch him."

"Speakin' of gettin' sloppy," said Spagnolo, looking pointedly at Mulder and Scully, "either of youse guys slept in the past twenty-four hours? You came straight here from the house this morning, and Agent Scully, you been at the morgue for hours. Morris and me, we went home and slept this morning, but we need everyone sharp tonight. I want you both to get back to your hotel and sleep, you hear?"

"But Mom, I'm not tired," grumbled Mulder good-naturedly. Spagnolo snorted.

"I don't wanna hear it, Mulder," he said firmly. "We're gonna change shifts at two in the morning, and I don't wanna see either of you here before that. Somethin' happens, we'll call, but until then, get your asses back to your hotel."

 

\-----------

 

HOLIDAY INN MIDTOWN, PHILADELPHIA  
7:00 PM

 

As soon as they got back to the hotel, Mulder took a long shower, which did absolutely nothing to relieve the tension in his neck, or to make him the slightest bit amenable to the idea of sleeping. His mind was racing at top speed, running over the names of the victims, the details of their lives, trying to make the connection he knew must be there. 

The problem was, every time he managed to focus, even a little bit, his mind immediately jumped to Scully, to the crushing fear he'd felt when she had hung up the phone, the terror of rushing into the house, not knowing what he would find, whether Kellerman would get to her before he got through the front door... and finally, the sweet, intoxicating relief, nearly knocking the strength out of his legs, when she came flying, unhurt, down the stairs towards Kellerman's body. The urge to take her in his arms had been all but impossible to resist... and they had not been alone, not for one moment, since then. When they'd gotten back in the car to drive back to the station after Kellerman's body had been taken away, two other officers had climbed into the backseat behind them, and the most Mulder had been able to manage had been a quick, subtle squeeze of Scully's hand.

Mulder stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist. He grabbed a second from the rack, rubbing it briskly against his hair as he opened the bathroom door to allow the steam to escape. He stepped out into the room... and stopped short at the sight of Scully, calmly waiting for him on his bed, a robe loosely belted around her waist. Her eyes traveled over him, lingering on his naked chest, and he swallowed, hard.

"I had a hunch you might find it tough to sleep," she said quietly. "I didn't think I'd be able to, either."

"I think last night you mentioned having some idea of how to solve that problem," he said. "I'm hoping like hell you weren't talking about giving me some Xanax." Scully shook her head, smiling softly, and patted the bed next to her. He crossed the room slowly, staggering to an ungraceful stop as Scully reached down and unknotted the robe, shrugging out of it in one smooth motion. For a moment, all he could do was stand there and drink her in. She was absolutely sublime, a vision, more beautiful than he could possibly have imagined- and he had imagined more than he was willing to admit.

"Mulder?" Her voice brought him back down to earth. "This isn't going to be nearly as much fun if you stay all the way over there." Mulder grinned sheepishly and finished crossing to the bed. He dropped the towel to the floor. Scully's eyes slid down his body, her eyes widening slightly as her gaze settled between his hips. She caught her lips in her teeth, moistening them with her tongue, the same quick flick between her lips that had left him weak in the knees every time she'd done it for six years. He dropped onto the bed with decidedly less grace than he would have liked, crawling up to the headboard to lie beside her. He reached out tentatively, running one finger along her side, settling his hand over the jut of her hipbone.

"Last time was a little... fast," he said. "I think I can make this last a little longer." She smiled, twining one toned leg up and over his hip, and for a moment the contact of her smooth skin on his threatened to make him immediately eat his words. 

"Fast isn't always automatically a bad thing," Scully said. "I certainly wasn't left wanting." She frowned slightly. "Were you?"

"God, no," he reassured her quickly. "It was...." His mind was suddenly full of their first, intense coupling, the sounds of their bodies together, her voice crying out his name, the feel of her climaxing around him. "Scully, it's been five days, and I _still_ don't have the words to describe it. I've been fantasizing about it for years- _years,_ Scully- and I was still totally blown away."

"Years, huh?" Her smile was teasing, playful.

"Oh yeah. And nothing I ever imagined could have lived up to the reality. I promise, Scully, you're not gonna hear any complaints from me. It's just...." He slid the hand at her hip around her waist to her back, drawing her closer to him. "There are things I didn't get to do. Things I've wanted to do for you for a long, long time." Scully bit her lip again, smiling up at him.

"Like?" Mulder smiled, cupped Scully's cheek with his hand, and kissed her deeply. She melted against him, tangling her hands in his hair, pressing her breasts against him and pulling him flush against her with the leg around his hip. His lips left hers- reluctantly, lured only by the promise of their final destination- to kiss down the side of her neck, over her collarbone, stopping briefly to take one taut, pink nipple into his mouth and suckling gently. Scully gasped, cradling his head to her breasts. He lingered there, fondling one and kissing the other, switching, holding them together, burying his face in them, paying close attention to her breathing, to what she seemed to like best. Keeping his hands on her breasts, he kissed slowly down her torso, smiling as she twitched and jerked when his lips brushed the sensitive skin of her stomach, marveling at how outside of her severe suits, all of the sharp lines and hard planes of her body fell into sweet, gentle curves. He lifted his head, gazing up at her, her head tipped back, her eyes closed... and her eyes flew open and her head jerked sharply off the bed as Mulder's mouth descended, without warning, between her legs.

"Jesus, Mulder!" she gasped as he went to work on her. He made no response, except to moan in ecstasy as his mouth was flooded with her sweet, rich flavor. She was exquisite. He slid first one finger into her, then a second, drawing them up against her, flicking his tongue against her clit from the other side. She buried his hands in his hair again, holding him in place as her hips bucked up against him. "Mulder...." She gasped out his name, and suddenly he was aware she was pulling him up, away from her. "I want...."

"Tell me, Scully," he whispered, his fingers still inside of her, continuing their ministrations. "Tell me what you want." She opened her eyes, fixing him with an intense, demanding stare. 

"I want you inside of me when I come, Mulder," she said, and he felt her words leave a burning trail straight through him. He withdrew his fingers and crawled back up her body, kissing her firmly. He held himself up with one hand, and with the other he reached between them, taking himself in hand and sliding slowly into her. Scully looked down, watching him enter her, but Mulder never took his eyes off of her face. She looked back up to see him gazing at her and smiled shyly, blushing slightly. He stroked her cheek, kissing her as he began to move inside of her, keeping his eyes open and locked on hers.

Mulder reached down between them, brushing them over her clit, remembering the rhythm Scully had showed him their first time. She gasped appreciatively, clenching around him, and as much as Mulder had wanted this to be slow, to take his time, he began to lose control, to pound into her harder. He tried to slow down, but Scully caught his hip, shaking her head.

"Let go, Mulder," she whispered. "I'm right here with you." He began to slam into her hard and fast, keeping his hand at her clit, managing to keep the same rhythm, until Scully suddenly gasped and screamed his name, bucking hard beneath him. She did not close her eyes, but kept them fixed on his, wide blue pools Mulder felt he could lose himself in.

And lose himself he did, moments later, his orgasm tearing out of him with a screaming gasp as he emptied himself into her. She held him close, her fingernails tracing up and down his back, as they came back down. As his breath returned, Mulder smiled at her ruefully.

"Did I say something about taking it slowly?" he mumbled. "I think I might've underestimated the effect you have on me, Scully." She laughed, the vibrations where they were still connected sending shivers through him.

"Mulder," she said, her fingers playing gently across his back, "maybe, for now, don't worry about that, okay? You're going to get plenty of chances to go slow, and for now, I promise, you're not going to hear a single complaint from me."

 

Mulder didn't remember falling asleep, but he must have, because when the phone rang at just past one in the morning, the room was dark, and he was lying under the blankets he knew had earlier been in a heap on the floor. He couldn't remember anything after he and Scully had made love again, but clearly, she had taken the time to tuck them in after he'd passed out. She was pressed against him under the covers, and she stirred slightly as he reached for the phone, squinting through sleep-bleary eyes to find the buttons.

"Mulder," he mumbled.

"Yeah, Mulder, we're gonna need you and Scully ASAP." Spagnolo's voice was grim in Mulder's ear. He sat up quickly.

"Another victim?"

"Yeah." There was a brief silence on the phone, and Mulder thought he heard Spagnolo fighting to get his breathing under control. "It's bad, man. It's the worst one yet." The blankets were suddenly pulled back, and Mulder was aware, in the semidarkness, that Scully was awake and sitting up, watching him.

"Killed indoors or outside?" asked Mulder, climbing out of bed and turning on the light. Scully mouthed to him that she was getting dressed, then disappeared through the connecting door into her room.

"Inside," said Spagnolo. "Need youse guys to come up to 4436 Osage Avenue. Drive the same way I took you to go to the first crime scene; it's not far from University City."

"We'll be there as soon as we can," promised Mulder, digging fresh clothing out of his suitcase.

"Agent Scully, is she... uh... she gonna be okay? This is a bad one, man, real bad." Mulder just barely held back a snort of laughter.

"Spagnolo, Scully cuts up murder victims for a living," Mulder reassured the detective. "I promise, she's got a tougher stomach than you, me, and Morris put together."

 

\----------------

 

HOME OF MARTIN SHELLEY  
4436 OSAGE AVE  
MONDAY, OCTOBER 18  
1:30 AM

 

The sharp, heavy smell of blood hit Mulder the moment he crossed the threshold of the West Philadelphia row home. Spagnolo met them at the door and pointed them into the house's front room, declining to accompany them. Mulder could see why as soon as he and Scully rounded the corner.

The body lying on the couch under a picture window in the front of the house no longer resembled a human being. Limbs had been savagely hacked off and left nearby, the entire torso had been laid open, and, in many places, the skin actually appeared to have been peeled back. By the victim's height, and what remained of its hair, it appeared to be male, but it was difficult to tell. Above him, great gouts of blood were splashed over the window. The streetlights shining through it from outside bathed the room in a sickening red glow. Mulder stayed where he was, in the doorway, but Scully donned a pair of latex gloves and moved in for a closer look.

"Multiple internal organs missing this time," she said. "Heart and lungs for sure. Stomach... liver... probably more. I'll know after the autopsy." She examined what left of the tissue connecting the victim's limbs. "Right arm is completely severed; left arm slightly less so. Deep gashes at the tops of both thighs, but the legs are still both attached at the bone." She glanced back up at the abdominal cavity. "Large amounts of intestine appear to be missing, but...." She leaned farther forward. "They've been dumped behind the couch." There was a retching sound behind them, and the lone officer still stout enough to have remained in the room ran out into the hallway. A moment later, they heard him being sick out front of the house.

"You don't look to shocked by the extent he's gone to this time," murmured Scully, glancing up at Mulder as she returned to his side.

"Mary Kelly, the last of Jack the Ripper's victims, was butchered worse than any of the others," he said quietly. "Probably because she was killed indoors and he had more time to do as he liked without fear of being caught."

"Clearly this guy isn't afraid of being caught, either," said Scully defeatedly. "And why should he be? We're no closer to identifying him now than we were when we started."

 

\-------------

 

PHILADELPHIA POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
MONDAY, OCTOBER 18  
5:30 PM

 

Mulder was sitting slumped on the sofa in the conference room when Scully finally arrived back from the morgue, autopsy notes tucked under her arm, deep circles under her eyes. It had taken hours for the forensics crew to go over the crime scene, and even longer for the victim's remains to be gathered up and transported to the morgue. Scully's autopsy had taken all afternoon. The victim's face had been in such horrible shape that dental records had been required to make the identification. 

"His name was Martin Shelley," said Scully, sinking down onto the couch next to Mulder. "He lived alone. He'd been renting that house for a little over two years." She leaned back, closing her eyes. "Histamine levels indicate it's likely much of the mutilation was done prior to the victim's throat being cut." Mulder hissed involuntarily. 

"Forensics says the killer came in through the back door," he told her. "Picked the lock. The landlord apparently wasn't one for investing in home security." Scully stretched and yawned. 

"Speaking of locks and keys, can I use your keycard for the hotel room?" she asked. "I think I might've left mine in the locker room back at the morgue."

"You want me to drive you over to get it?" Mulder asked. Scully shook her head.

"No, Dr. O'Leary was hanging around there harassing me again. That's probably what distracted me enough to forget it. I really just want to grab a shower back at the hotel without having to deal with him first."

"You want me to go beat him up for you?" Scully grinned.

"My very own knight in shining armor," she said. "No, just give me your key. I'll go back for mine later, okay?"

"Sure, no problem," said Mulder, fishing out his key and handing it over. "I'd come back with you, but we're going to need to run through all the info on Martin Shelley and see what we come up with."

"I won't be long," she promised. She glanced around at the empty conference room, kissed him on the cheek, and left. Mulder stayed on the couch a moment longer, leaning back, eyes closed and a slight smile playing over his face as he memorized the feel of her lips. He had a sneaking suspicion that any and all public displays of affection would cease the moment they returned to DC- the idea of stealing a kiss from her within the walls of the Hoover building was laughable- but for now, he was enjoying it.

Gathering up the autopsy report Scully left behind, Mulder left the conference room, making his way back down the hallway and through the rows of detectives' desks, dropping down into a seat at the table under the bulletin boards where Spagnolo, Morris, Carrillo, and a handful of other officers from the stakeout were gathered.

"Whaddaya got, Mulder?" asked Spagnolo. "Agent Scully done the autopsy?"

"Yup," said Mulder, opening the folder Scully had brought from the morgue. "Victim's name is Martin Shelley, age forty-three. He was an insurance salesman, unmarried, no children, no-"

"Amos, you got somethin' to add here?" interrupted Spagnolo. Looking up, Mulder was amused to see that one of the officers, a young guy who'd been assigned to watch Terri Sellers' backyard during the stakeout, was actually sitting with his hand raised, as though asking a question in class.

"Is there a picture of the victim?" asked Amos timidly. "Not from tonight, I mean. Something from before?" Mulder shuffled through the file and withdrew a copy of the photo from Shelley's driver's license. He passed it to Amos, who studied it intently. "The house was on Osage?"

"Yeah, Osage and forty-fourth," said Morris.

"You knew him?" asked Mulder, hope sparking at the back of his mind as Amos nodded.

"I was out at his house two months ago," said Amos. "His car got vandalized in his driveway. Neighbor kid 'fessed up to it two days later."

"What's that got to do with this, though?" asked Carillo, frowning. "No way it can be related."

"Yes, it can," said Mulder quietly. And now that the possibility had occurred to him, he couldn't believe it had taken him this long to get there.

"How?" asked Spagnolo.

"Because it got Martin Shelley's name into a database available to a large group of people," said Mulder. The faces around him remained blank. "The vandalism of Martin Shelley's car got his name into the police system," he continued. "And I'm guessing...." He stood and crossed to the bulletin boards, pointing at a photo of one of the early victims. "Barry Strickler was a known drug dealer," he said. "So it's safe to assume his name would be in Philly PD's records somewhere, right?" Morris gasped as comprehension dawned.

"Stanley Hammond was mugged on a prior business trip to Philly," he said. "I remember it stuck out in my mind because it seemed so unlikely someone would get mugged on their first trip here and murdered three weeks later on their second trip."

"Run the remaining victims' names through your computer system," said Mulder. "I'm almost certain they'll all be in there somewhere."

"Yeah, but Mulder, if the killer's gettin' his names and addresses from the police database, then that means he'd have to have access to it. Which would mean...." The table fell completely silent at the gravity of what Mulder was suggesting.

"He can't be a cop," said Morris softly. "Can't be. What about what Agent Scully said? About the way the organs were removed?" Morris's words tugged at something elusive at the back of Mulder's brain. He couldn't put his finger on it, but suddenly, he was irrationally scared. He thought, suddenly, of Scully's hotel room keycard, sitting on a table at the morgue. There was something there... some connection.....

"Yeah, she said she was almost positive the guy would be a doctor or somethin' like a doctor, didn't she?" insisted Spagnolo. "It ain't just us who can look people up in the police system, you know. Other city offices got access, too."

"So, what, we're looking for someone who works for the city, who has access to the database of reported crimes, and who also happens to be a doctor or have medical training, like Scully said?" Her name. Something about her name. Dana Scully. Martin Shelley. Mary Kelly. Her keycard. Scully. At the hotel. With his keycard. Because hers was at the morgue.

The morgue.

Office of the chief medical examiner.

Mulder seized the back of a chair as his legs nearly gave out.

"Spagnolo, I need you to drive me to the hotel," he barked. " _NOW._ "

"Mulder, what-"

"I know who it is. And I know who he's after."


	10. Late, Late, So Late

HOLIDAY INN MIDTOWN, PHILADELPHIA  
MONDAY, OCTOBER 18  
5:30 PM

 

Scully let herself into Mulder's room with his borrowed keycard, inwardly patting herself on the back for leaving the connecting door unlocked. She entered her own room, making a beeline directly for the shower, kicking her heels off and tossing her clothes and gun on the bed along the way. She ran the water as hot as she could stand and stepped under the scalding stream, allowing the heat to loosen the post-autopsy stiffness in her neck and shoulders, wishing Mulder was there to massage the kinks out of her muscles for her.

 _I can ask him to do that now,_ she thought to herself, and felt a warm flush all through her body. _I don't have to think twice about it._ It was something he'd offered to do on occasion before, and once or twice she'd allowed him to, but always with some reservations. She smiled softly as she washed herself, almost enjoying the lingering soreness she'd been left with after his enthusiastic lovemaking.

She'd always known they would be good together. The way her skin had always sparked and lit up at the slightest, most benign touch of his fingers, the way the air between them had crackled with electricity from the very beginning, the intensity in his eyes whenever they met hers... the chemistry had always been there, she had never doubted that. What she _had_ doubted, until just a few days ago, was how deep his feelings for her ran. 

Shutting off the water, she was suddenly struck by the thought that the last time she had been intimate with someone, it had been in this very same city. _What a difference two years can make,_ she mused, smiling wryly. That night with Jerse, she had been desperately trying to drown out her fears, her terror of ending up like those MUFON women, the horror at Leonard Betts' words. On top of all of that had been her annoyance with Mulder, her irrational anger at him for not being there for her- irrational, she knew, because she had not confided in him at all, had not told him what Betts had said. Fearful of coming off as paranoid, she had kept it inside, where it had threatened to drown her. She had tried to lose herself that night with Jerse... and she nearly had, though not in the way she'd wanted.

For awhile, she'd considered having the tattoo removed. She had been glad it was on her back, where she wouldn't see it unless she sought it out in the mirror, because at first, it was an embarrassing reminder of her inability to open up, her determined avoidance of the awful truth lurking in the back of her mind. But as the weeks progressed, as she received confirmation of the exact thing she'd been afraid of, she began to associate it with something different. When she caught sight of the tattoo in the mirror, she began to think back to the day she'd been diagnosed, to Mulder's refusal to accept even the idea of her death, his dogged pursuit of a cure... and, more than anything, the gentle comfort of his embrace after Penny Northern's passing. After awhile, the sight of the tattoo was more likely to bring Mulder to mind than Jerse, and Scully slowly gave up the idea of removing it.

 _If only Mulder could have come to see it the same way,_ Scully thought, tying on her robe, smiling, as she toweled off her hair and left the bathroom, crossing to her bed. _Though now, it might finally not bother him as much as it has._

That was the last thought she had before a blow to the back of her head knocked her to the floor.

 

\----------

 

DETECTIVE SPAGNOLO'S CAR  
5:45 PM

 

"I don't get it, Mulder," said Spagnolo, taking a corner at breakneck speed. "I get why you think it's one of the pathologists, I get why it could be O'Leary, but why do you think he'd go for Agent Scully? I thought youse guys said the victims got picked out months ahead of time."

"They were, until now," said Mulder. "But I think O'Leary panicked when we took out Kellerman. I think he was scared when Scully was sharp enough to figure out that Kellerman hadn't been alone, and he probably knew it was only a matter of time until we figured out that the second set of victims was being culled from police records. I'm sure O'Leary had someone else picked, some mugging victim or DUI conviction, and I'm betting his plan was to take care of her tonight and then disappear."

"So what changed his mind?" asked Spagnolo.

"Her name," said Mulder. "Scully said O'Leary was showing up after her autopsies, harassing her, going through her belongings while she was getting dressed. He made a big show of reading her badge, taking down her badge number. I think he saw her full name- Dana Scully- and couldn't help himself." He bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted blood. "He probably saw it as fate."

"Dana Scully... Mary Kelly," said Morris quietly. "Shit, that's the worst luck in the world." He turned to Mulder. "You're _sure_ , man?"

"I might not have been," said Mulder, "except that Scully borrowed my room key just now because she couldn't find hers after the last autopsy. O'Leary must have taken it."

 _"Fuck,"_ swore Spagnolo, putting on another burst of speed. "Mulder, we're gonna get there in time, you hear? It ain't gonna happen to her. Not on my watch."

 

\-----------

 

HOLIDAY INN MIDTOWN, PHILADELPHIA  
5:45 PM

 

Scully went flying forward, sprawling on the hotel room carpet, pain exploding at the back of her head and stars flashing in front of her eyes. Her teeth came down on her tongue as her chin hit the floor, and she tasted blood. Her head swam as the world began to go dark around her. Before she could get her hands under her chest to push herself up, an arm seized her roughly around the shoulders, hauling her to her feet. She felt the sharp bite of cold steel at her neck... and suddenly, she knew what was happening, and snapped back to awareness. Ignoring her instinct to pull away, she instead shoved her body backwards against her assailant, taking him by surprise and making him let go of her. She could feel hot blood running down her neck as the knife fell away and for a moment she was terrified he had succeeded, but the trickle was slow, the cut superficial. She spun around, backing across the room towards her bed, where her gun in its holster lay under her discarded blazer, and saw Dr. O'Leary, clutching the same style knife Kellerman had been wielding, charging towards her. She sidestepped him- barely- and knocked his knife arm aside again, but not before it grazed her tricep, cutting all too easily through the terrycloth arm of her robe.

O'Leary grabbed at her injured arm, trying to drag her towards him, and Scully kicked out, losing her balance and falling again, but breaking O'Leary's hold. She threw herself sideways across the floor, scrambling onto her hands and knees by the bed, whipping her blazer aside to reveal her holster lying on the bedspread.

Empty.

"Looking for this?" asked O'Leary, reaching into his pocket and pulling out her gun. Scully froze, backed up against the nightstand. "I don't think you'll be needing it." He released the clip, flinging it across the room, and put the gun back in his waistband. "Neither will I, for that matter. Not much artistry in shooting someone, don't you think?" He advanced on her again. His face was bathed in the glow of triumph- he had her and he knew it. Scully flashed back to Martin Shelley's living room, to the corpse that had barely looked human when O'Leary had finished with it. _Not me,_ she thought, and reaching to her side, she seized the lamp from atop the nightstand, thanking whatever deity that might be listening that it wasn't bolted to the table. Swinging it like a baseball bat, she caught O'Leary in the jaw, sending him reeling to land hard on his back. The gun slipped from his waistband, skittering across the floor towards Scully. She snatched it up.

Scully dropped the now-broken lamp to the floor and delivered a swift kick to O'Leary's side. He screamed in pain, rolling towards Scully and lashing out with the knife, catching her across her shin. Running on pure adrenaline, fighting for her life, she barely felt the pain, and let fly with another kick, taking O'Leary square in the diaphragm and knocking the wind out of him. His arms flew forward and the knife flew from his grasp. Scully kicked it away, running across the room to scoop the ammo clip from the floor and slap it into place. She pivoted in time to see O'Leary reclaiming his knife and whirling around. With a wordless scream of fury, he charged her.

She fired.

 

\----------

 

HOLIDAY INN MIDTOWN, PHILADELPHIA  
3RD FLOOR HALLWAY  
5:50 PM

 

Mulder leapt out of the elevator and pounded down the hallway without waiting for Spagnolo, Morris, or the officers that had followed them in other cars. His heart was in his throat and his head was full of images of Scully, his Scully, spread in pieces across her hotel room, like Martin Shelley in his living room, Mary Kelly in her room on Miller's Court. Ten feet from her door, he heard O'Leary's feral scream... then a shot... then silence.

"SCULLY!!!" he screamed, flying the last few feet to her door. With no keycard to unlock it, he raised his foot and threw his entire weight against the door, saying a quick thanks for cheap hotel construction as it buckled beneath him. He charged in, gun drawn, Spagnolo and Morris right behind him.

The first thing he saw was the blood.

For a moment, his horror-struck brain could not make sense of what it was seeing, so certain was he that he was about to find Scully dead. Instead, Bryan O'Leary lay flat on his back on the far side of the double bed, his chest covered in blood, gasping his last breaths, his hand still clutching his bloody knife.

_There was blood on his knife._

That horrifying realization propelled Mulder the rest of the way into the room, tearing around the bed to find Scully sitting with her back against it, facing away from the door, her gun pointing at O'Leary. She lowered it as soon as she saw that Spagnolo and Morris had him covered, and Mulder could see the blood on her neck, her arm, her leg... but the bleeding was already stopping. She was alive.

Moaning her name in relief, not caring that they weren't alone, Mulder sank to the floor and gathered Scully into his arms.

 

\-----------

 

BISTRO ROMANO  
120 LOMBARD ST  
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20  
8:00 PM

 

"You definitely weren't kidding, Spagnolo," said Mulder, pushing away his empty dessert plate and leaning back in his chair, his wine glass in one hand, his other arm slung casually around Scully. "This food is definitely incredible."

"Toldja, man," said Spagnolo, raising his glass in agreement. "Forget your cheesesteak dates, you cheapo. This is where it's at."

"Cheesesteak dates?" asked Scully, raising her eyebrow at Mulder. The bandages covering the cut on her neck and the stitches on her arm were hidden by a blue turtleneck.

"I told your boy here the first day youse guys came to Philly, he oughta take you someplace special, someplace classy. Any lady who can cut up a corpse and then chow down on pizza ten minutes later, and then single-handedly take down a guy who's killed six people and walk away with just a coupla scratches...." He shook his head, taking a swig of his wine. "A lady like that deserves the best." Scully grinned in spite of herself.

"This was amazing, I'll grant you that," she said. "But there's nothing wrong with a good cheesesteak, either."

"How much longer are you staying in town?" asked Morris.

"We'll probably head home tomorrow," said Mulder. "There are still a few things to take care of at the station and at the field office here, but we'll probably be on the road after lunch." He sighed, draining his glass and placing it on the table. "And then it's back to fertilizer tracking and background checks."

"For now," said Scully consolingly. "You never know when things are going to change." Mulder held her gaze, grinning.

"Ain't that the truth," he said, and Scully blushed. Mulder pushed back his chair. "Well, gentlemen, I think Scully and I are gonna walk around a bit before we head back to the hotel. We'll see you at the station tomorrow?"

"Yeah, we'll be there," said Spagnolo. "I'm pickin' up the family from my mother-in-law's place in the morning, but I should be in before youse guys head back to DC." He stood, shaking Mulder's hand, then Scully's. Morris did the same. "I can't tell ya how much I appreciate what you did here," he told them sincerely. "I don't think we ever woulda stopped either of those guys without your help."

"We were glad to do it," said Scully.

"Happy to help," agreed Mulder. "You get any more cases like this one, Spagnolo, don't hesitate to call us."

"Cases like this one? Legendary killers coming back to life to terrorize my streets?" Spagnolo shuddered. "Yeah, okay, if I get reports of the Headless Horseman marauding down the Ben Franklin Parkway, I'll give ya a call."

 

\------------

 

Outside, Mulder slid his arm around Scully's shoulders as they walked east on Lombard, towards the river. They stopped at Penn's Landing and stood at the railing, looking out over the water at the lights changing colors along the Ben Franklin Bridge. Scully slipped her arm around Mulder's waist and leaned against him.

"You know, Mulder," she commented, "South Street is just a few blocks from here. Could be worth a visit."

"Why do you say that?" Scully's smile was mischievous.

"Lots of quality tattoo parlors there, I hear," she said. "You could get that Yankees tattoo without worrying about ergot poisoning." Mulder laughed, putting his other arm around Scully and hugging her close.

"I don't think I need it after all," he said. His hand fell to her back, resting just over the spot where he knew the ouroboros was etched into her skin. They held each other, gazing out over the water. Mulder bent his head and kissed Scully gently, sweetly. "I really used to hate Philadelphia," he said.

"I know you did," said Scully, tightening her arms around him.

"Now I can't think why."

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. That was fun.
> 
> I have loved every comment I've gotten on this piece. I tend to post late at night and then go straight to bed, and the first thing on my mind the morning after putting up a chapter has been checking to see what lovely things people have said. You are all far too kind and far too forgiving and my ego is loving every second.
> 
> As you can probably tell, I've spent time in Philadelphia, though I sadly don't live there anymore. All the locations are real places- there's a cheesesteak place called Abner's that I think is just as good as Pat's or Geno's, the Summer Winter Community Garden really is known to Drexel students as the Rape Garden, and Bistro Romano makes the most amazing lobster ravioli you could possibly imagine (my husband was supposed to propose to me there, but he was running late and they were closed, so he had to do it next door, instead). Even the house on Bainbridge is modeled after the home of a friend's professor, which I visited while my friend was housesitting for them.
> 
> The chapter titles are all titles of poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The scene in the Rape Garden made "Come Into the Garden, Maud" stick in my mind (because of the title only, obviously; the two things have nothing else in common), and I ran with it, mainly because Tennyson was writing poetry right around the time Jack the Ripper was terrorizing London's East End.
> 
> I came up with the title of the piece because I wanted to have at least one nighttime scene that took place in creepy London-style fog, and by the time I realized that scene wasn't going to happen, it was too late to change the title. Whoops.
> 
> If you, like me, have a bizarre interest in Jack the Ripper (there's something just not right about me, I'm telling you), I recommend reading Alan Moore's superb graphic novel "From Hell." You can watch the movie, too, but be forewarned that Heather Graham's performance is almost bad enough to make you want to reach through the screen with a sharp instrument of your own. Ian Holm's performance, however, nearly makes up for it. Also try Maureen Johnson's "The Name of the Star," which is possibly the funniest Jack the Ripper-related story in the world. And if romance is more your thing, try Jennifer Donnelly's "The Tea Rose," and prepare to have your heart ripped out of your chest and then sewn back in again. I mostly hate romance novels, but I love this book so much.
> 
> Again, thanks for reading! On to the next project!


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